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THE 



COVENANT OF SALT 



AS BASED ON THE SIGNIFICANCE AND SYMBOLISM 
OF SALT IN PRIMITIVE THOUGHT 



K A~\ by 
H. CLAY TRUMBULL 

Author of "The Blood Covenant," "The Threshold Covenant," "Kadesh- 
barnea," "Studies in Oriental Social Life," etc. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1899 









TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 

Library of Congre«% 
Office o f the 

NOV 1 8 1R0Q 

Register of Copyright* 



48676 

Copyright, 1899 
By H. CLAY TRUMBULL 



SECOND COPY, 



PREFACE 



In 1884 I issued a volume on "The Blood Cove- 
nant : A Primitive Rite and its Bearings on Scripture." 
Later I was led to attempt, and to announce as in 
preparation, another volume in the field of primitive 
covenants, including a treatment of " The Name 
Covenant," " The Covenant of Salt," and " The 
Threshold Covenant." In 1896, I issued a separate 
volume on " The Threshold Covenant," that subject 
having grown into such prominence in my studies as 
to justify its treatment by itself. These two works, 
"The Blood Covenant" and "The Threshold Cove- 
nant," have been welcomed by scholars on both sides 
of the ocean to an extent beyond my expectations, 
and in view of this I venture to submit some further 
researches in the field of primitive thought and 
customs. 

Before the issuing of my second volume, I had pre- 
pared the main portion of this present work on "The 
Covenant of Salt," but since then I have been led to 
revise it, and to conform it more fully to my latest 



VI PREFA CE 

conclusion as to the practical identity of all covenants. 
It is in this form that I present it, as a fresh contribu- 
tion to the study of archeology and of anthropology. 

As I have come to see it, as a result of my re- 
searches, the very idea of a " covenant" in primitive 
thought is a union of being, or of persons, in a com- 
mon life, with the approval of God, or of the gods. 
This was primarily a sharing of blood, which is life, 
between two persons, through a rite which had the 
sanction of him who is the source of all life. In 
this sense " blood brotherhood" and the " threshold 
covenant" are but different forms of one and the 
same covenant The blood of animals shared in a 
common sacrifice is counted as the blood which makes 
two one in a sacred covenant. Wine as " the blood 
of the grape " stands for the blood which is the life 
of all flesh ; hence the sharing of wine stands for the 
sharing of blood or life. So, again, salt represents 
blood, or life, and the covenant of salt is simply another 
form of the one blood covenant. This is the main 
point of this new monograph. So far as I know, this 
truth has not before been recognized or formulated. 

Similarly the sharing of a common name, especially 
of the name of God, or of a god, is the claim of a 
divinely sanctioned covenant between those who bear 

it. It is another mode of claiming to be in the one 

t 



PREFACE vn 

vital covenant A temporary agreement, or truce, 
between two who share a drink of water or a morsel 
of bread, is a lesser and very different thing from 
entering into a covenant, which by its very nature is 
permanent and unchangeable. This difference is 
pointed out and emphasized in the following pages. 

In these new investigations, as in my former ones, 
I have been aided, step by step, by specialists, who 
have kindly given me suggestions and assistance by 
every means in their power. This furnishes a fresh 
illustration of the readiness of all scholars to aid any 
fresh worker in any line where their own labors render 
them an authority or a guide. 

Besides my special acknowledgments in the text 
and footnotes of this volume, I desire to express my 
indebtedness and thanks to these scholars who have 
freely rendered me important assistance at various 
points in my studies : Professor Dr. Hermann V. Hil- 
precht, the Rev. Drs. Marcus Jastrow, K. Kohler, and 
Henry C. McCook, Professor Drs. Hermann Collitz, 
H. Carrington Bolton, William H. Roberts, Morris 
Jastrow, Jr., F. K. Sanders, William A. Lamberton, 
W. W. Keen, William Osier, J. W. Warren, and D. C. 
Munro, Drs. J. Solis Cohen, Thomas G. Morton, Charles 
W. Dulles, Henry C. Cattell, and Frederic H. Howard, 
Rev. Dean E. T. Bartlett, President Robert E. Thomp- 



viii PREFACE 

son, Drs. Talcott Williams, Henry C. Lea, and T. H. 
Powers Sailer, Messrs. Clarence H. Clark and Patter- 
son DuBois. 

This third work is to be considered in connection 
with the two which have preceded it in the same field. 
It is hoped that it will be recognized as adding an 
important thought to the truths brought out in those 
works severally. 

A previously published monograph on "The Ten 
Commandments as a Covenant of Love " is added to 
"The Covenant of Salt" as a Supplement, in order 
that it may be available to readers of this series of 
volumes on covenants, as a historical illustration of 
the subject under discussion. 

H. C. T. 

Philadelphia, 

October, i8gg. 



CONTENTS 
I. 

Page 

Characteristics of a Covenant , i 

II. 
A Covenant of Salt n 

III. 

Bible References to the Rite 15 

IV. 
Bread and Salt , . , . 21 

V. 
Salt Representing Blood . 35 

VI. 
Salt Representing Life 51 

VII. 

Salt and Sun, Life and Light . . . 3 . . . 71 

VIII. 
Significance of Bread yy 

IX. 
Salt in Sacrifices 81 

IX 



X CONTENTS 

X. 

Page 

Salt in Exorcism and Divination 97 

XI. 
Faithlessness to Salt 107 

XII. 

Substitute together with Reality 115 

XIII. 
Added Traces of the Rite 121 

XIV. 
A Savor of Life or of Death 131 

XV 
Means of a Merged Life 139 

SUPPLEMENT 
The Ten Commandments as a Covenant of Love . 143 

INDEXES 
Topical Index, 177. Scriptural Index, 183. 



I 

CHARACTERISTICS OF A COVENANT 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A COVENANT 

Our English word " covenant," like many another 
word in our language and in other languages, fails to 
convey, or even to contain, its fullest and most im- 
portant meaning in comparison with the idea back of 
it As a matter of fact, this must be true of nearly all 
words. Ideas precede words. Ideas have spirit and 
life before they are shaped or clothed in words. 
Words have necessarily human limitations and im- 
perfectness, because of their purely human origin. 

When an idea first seeks expression in words, it is 
inevitable that it be cramped by the means employed 
for its conveyance. At the best the word can only 
suggest the idea back of it, rather than accurately 
define and explain that idea. In practice, or in con- 
tinued and varied use, in the development of thought 
and of language, changes necessarily occur in the 
word or words selected to convey a primal idea, in 
order to indicate other phases of the idea than that 
brought out or pointed to by the first chosen word. 

3 



4 THE CO VENANT OE SAL T 

While these changes and additions aid some persons 
to an understanding of the root idea, they tend to 
confuse others, especially those who are looking for 
exactness of definition. 

As a rule, the earlier words chosen for the expres- 
sion of an idea are more likely than later ones to 
suggest the main thought seeking expression. Hence 
there is often a gain in looking back among the Greek 
and Sanskrit and Hebrew and Assyrian roots carried 
forward by religion or commerce into our English 
words and idioms, when we are searching for the true 
meaning of an important custom or rite or thought 
Yet this will ordinarily be confusing rather than clari- 
fying to an exact scholar. Only as a person is intent 
on the primal thought back of the chosen word is he 
likely to perceive the true meaning and value of the 
suggestions of the earlier word or words found in his 
searching. 

Archeology is sometimes more valuable than phi- 
lology in throwing light on the meaning of ancient 
words. It is often easier to explain the use of an 
archaic word by a disclosed primitive custom or rite, 
than to discern a hidden primitive rite or custom by 
a study of the words used in referring to it. An 
archeologist may suggest a solution of a problem 
which hopelessly puzzles the lexicographer or gram- 



* 



ROOT IDEA OF COVENANTING 5 

marian. Sentiment and the poetic instinct are often 
more helpful, in such research, than prescribed ety- 
mological methods. He who looks for an exact 
definition can never reach a conclusion. If he seeks 
a suggestion, he may find one. 

" Covenant," as an English word, simply means, 
according to its etymological signification, " a coming 
together." At times the word is used interchangeably 
with such words as " an agreement," " a league," "a 
treaty," "a compact," " an arrangement," "an obliga- 
tion," or "a promise." Only by its context and con- 
nections are we shown in special cases that a covenant 
bond has peculiar or pre-eminent sacredness and 
perpetuity. This truth is, however, shown in many 
an instance, especially in translations from earlier 
languages. 

Even in our use of the English word " covenant " 
we have to recognize, at times, its meaning as a sacred 
and indissoluble joining together of the two parties 
covenanting, as distinct from any ordinary agreement 
or compact. And when we go back, as in our Eng- 
lish Bible, to the Greek and Hebrew words rendered 
"covenant," or "testament," or "oath," in a sworn 
bond, we find ,this distinction more strongly em- 
phasized. It is therefore essential to a correct view 
of any form of primitive covenanting that we under- 



6 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

stand the root idea in this primal sort of coming 
together. 

Primitive covenanting was by two persons cutting 
into each other's flesh, and sharing by contact, or by 
drinking, the blood thus brought out. Earliest it was 
the personal blood of the two parties that was the 
nexus of their covenant. Later it was the blood of a 
shared and eaten sacrifice that formed the covenant 
nexus. In such a case the food of the feast became 
a part of the life of each and both, and fixed their 
union. In any case it was the common life into 
which each party was brought by the covenant that 
bound them irrevocably. This fixed the binding of 
the two as permanent and established. 1 

Lexicographers and critics puzzle over the sup- 
posed Hebrew or Assyrian origin of the words trans- 
lated "covenant" in our English Bible, and they fail 
to agree even reasonably well on the root or roots in- 
volved. Yet all the various words or roots suggested 
by them have obvious reference to the primal idea of 
covenanting as a means of life-sharing ; therefore their 
verbal differences are, after all, of minor importance, 
and may simply point to different stages in the pro- 
gressive development of the languages. 

Whether, therefore, the root of the Hebrew bSreeth 

1 See Blood Covenant and Threshold Covenant, passim. 



MAKING TWAIN ONE 7 

means, as is variously claimed, "to cut," "to fetter," 
"to bind together," "to fix," "to establish," "to 
pour out," or "to eat," it is easy to see how these 
words may have been taken as referring to the one 
primitive idea of a compassed and established union. 1 
So in the Greek words diatheke and horkion it can 
readily be seen that the references to the new placing 
or disposing of the parties, to their solemn appeal to 
God or the gods in the covenanting, and to the testa- 
ment to take effect after the death of the testator, or 
to the means employed in this transaction, are alike 
consistent with the primitive idea of a covenant in 
God's sight by which one gives over one's very self, 
or one's entire possessions, to another. The pledged 
or merged personality of the two covenantors fully 
accounts for the different suggested references of the 
variously employed words. 

True marriage is thus a covenant, instead of an 
arrangement. The twain become no longer two, but 
one ; each is given to the other ; their separate iden- 
tity is lost in their common life. A ring, a bracelet, 
a band, has been from time immemorial the symbol 
and pledge of such an indissoluble union. 2 

1 See Gesenius's Hebraeisches und Aramaeisches Worterbuch, 12th 
ed., p. 120; Norwach's Lehrbuch der Hebraeischen Archaeologie, I., p. 
358, note 1 ; Friedrich Delitzsch's The Hebrew Language Viewed in the 
Light of Assyrian Research, p. 41 ; Blood Covenant, 2d ed., p. 264. 
2 Blood Covenant, 2d ed., pp. 64, 75, 77. 



8 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

Men have thus, many times and in many ways, 
signified their covenanting, and their consequent inter- 
change of personality and of being, by the exchange 
of certain various tokens and symbols ; but these ex- 
changes have not in any sense been the covenant 
itself, they have simply borne witness to a covenant 
Thus men have exchanged pledges of their covenant 
to be worn as phylacteries, or caskets, or amulets, or 
belts, on neck, or forehead, or arm, or body ; 1 they 
have exchanged weapons of warfare or of the chase ; 
they have exchanged articles of ordinary dress, or of 
ornament, or of special utility ; 2 they have exchanged 
with each other their personal names. 3 All these 
have been in token of an accomplished covenant, but 
they have not been forms or rites of the covenant 
itself. 

Circumcision is spoken of in the Old Testament as 
the token of a covenant between the individual and 
God. It is so counted by the Jew and the Muham- 
madan. In Madagascar, as illustrative of outside na- 
tions, it is counted as the token of a covenant between 
the individual and his earthly sovereign. The ceremo- 
nies accompanying it all go to prove this. 4 Again, 

1 Blood Covenant, 2d ed. , pp. 232-238, 326-330. 
2 Ibid., pp. 14, 24, 28, 35 f., 62, 270 ; 1 Sam. 18 : 4 ; 20 : 1-13. 
3 Ibid., 2d ed., p. 334 f. 
* Ibid. pp. 215-233 ; Gen. 17 : 1-14 ; Ellis's History of Madagascar, pp. 
176-186. 



CUSTOMS PRECEDE WORDS 9 

men have covenanted with one another to merge their 
common interests, and to obliterate or ignore their 
racial, tribal, or social distinctions, as no mere treaty 
or league could do. 

In tradition and in history men have covenanted 
with God, or with their gods, so that they could claim 
and bear the divine name as their own, thus sharing 
and representing the divine personality and power. 1 
Thus also in tradition different gods of primitive peo- 
ples and times have covenanted with one another, so 
that each was the other, and the two were the same. 2 

There are seeming traces of this root idea of cove- 
nanting, through making two one by merging the life 
of each in a common life, in words that make "union" 
out of "one." In the Welsh un is "one;" uno is 
"to unite." In the English, from the Latin, a unit 
unites with another unit, and the two are unified in 
the union. The two by this merging become not a 
double, but a larger one. Thus it is always in a true 
covenant. 

We have to study the meaning and growth of words 
in the light of ascertained primitive customs and rites 
and ideas, instead of expecting to learn from ascer- 
tained root-words what were the prevailing primal 

1 Blood Covenant, 2d ed. , p. 335. 
8 See Trumbull's Friendship the Master- Passion, p. 73 f. 



IO THE COVENANT OF SALT 

ideas and rites and customs in the world. In the line 
of such studying, covenants and the covenant relation 
have been found to be an important factor, and to 
have had a unique significance in the development of 
human language and in the progress of the human 
race from its origin and earliest history. The study 
and disclosures of the primitive covenant idea in its 
various forms and aspects have already brought to 
light important truths and principles, and the end is 
not yet. 



II 

A COVENANT OF SALT 



II 

A COVENANT OF SALT 

Among the varied forms of primitive covenanting, 
perhaps none is more widely known and honored, or 
less understood, the world over, than a covenant of salt, 
or a salt covenant. Religion and superstition, civiliza- 
tion and barbarism, alike deal with it as a bond or 
rite, yet without making clear the reasons for its use. 
The precise significance and symbolism of salt as the 
nexus of a lasting covenant is by no means generally 
understood or clearly defined by even scholars and 
scientists. The subject is certainly one worthy of 
careful consideration and study. 

A covenant of salt has mention, in peculiar rela- 
tions, in the Bible. It is prominent in the literature 
and traditions of the East. Here in our Western 
world there are various folk-lore customs and sayings 
that show familiarity with it as a vestige of primitive 
thought. Among the islands of the sea, and in out- 
of-the-way corners of the earth, it shows itself as 
clearly as in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. 

13 ' 



14 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

In some regions salt is spoken of as if it were 
merely an accompaniment of bread, and thus a com- 
mon and indispensable article of food ; but, again, its 
sharing stands out as signifying far more than is meant 
by an ordinary meal or feast. An explanation of its 
meaning, frequently offered or accepted by students 
and specialists, is that in its nature it is a preservative 
and essential, and therefore its presence adds value to 

\ an offering or to a sacramental rite. 1 But the mind can- 
not be satisfied with so superficial an interpretation as 
this, in view of many things in text and tradition that 

/■ go to show a unique sacredness of salt as salt, rather 
than as a preserver and enlivener of something that is 
of more value. It is evident that the true symbolism 
and sanctity of salt as the nexus of a covenant lie 
deeper than is yet admitted, or than has been formally 
stated by any scholar. 

1 See W. Robertson Smith's Religion of the Semites, pp. 203, 252 ; Art. 
"Salt," by W. R. S. in Encyc. Brit.; Trumbull's Studies in Oriental 
Social Life, pp. 106-112, with citations ; Norwach's Lehrbuch der 
Hebr&ischen Archceologie, II, p. 245, etc. 



Ill 

BIBLE REFERENCES TO THE RITE 



Ill 

BIBLE REFERENCES TO THE RITE 

A "covenant of salt" seems to stand quite by itself 
in the Bible record. Covenants made in blood, and 
again as celebrated by sharing a common meal, and 
by the exchange of weapons and clothing, and in 
various other ways, are of frequent mention ; but a 
covenant of salt is spoken of only three times, and in 
every one of these cases as if it were of peculiar and 
sacred significance ; each case is unique. - 

The Lord speaks of his covenant with Aaron and 
his sons, in the privileges of the priesthood in per- 
petuity, as such a covenant. To him he says : "All 
the heave offerings of the holy things, which the chil- 
dren of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given thee, 
and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, as a due 
for ever : it is a covenant of salt for ever before the 
Lord unto thee and to thy seed with thee." * 

Of the Lord's covenant with David and his seed, in 
the rights and privileges of royalty, Abijah the king of 

1 Num. 18 : 19. 

17 



1 8 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

Judah says to Jeroboam, the rival king of Israel : " 
Jeroboam and all Israel ; ought ye not to know that 
the Lord, the God of Israel, gave the kingdom over 
Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by 
a covenant of salt? " l 

Again, the Lord, through Moses, enjoins it upon 
the people of Israel to be faithful in the offering of 
sacrifices at his altar, according to the prescribed 
ritual. "Neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the 
covenant of thy God," he says, "to be lacking from 
thy meal offering : with all thine oblations thou shalt 
offer salt" 2 

While the word "covenant" appears more than 
two hundred and fifty times in the Old Testament, it 
is a remarkable fact that the term "covenant of salt" 
occurs in only these three instances, and then in such 
obviously exceptional connections. The Lord's cove- 
nant with Aaron and his seed in the priesthood, and 
with David and his seed in the kingship, is as a cove- 
nant of salt, perpetual and unalterable. And God's 
people in all their holy offerings are to bear in mind 
that the salt is a vital element and factor, if they 
would come within the terms of the perpetual and 
unalterable covenant. 

In the Bible, God speaks to men by means of 

1 2 Chron. 13 : 5. a Lev. 2 : 13. 



PERPETUAL AND UNALTERABLE 19 

human language ; and in the -figures of speech which 
he employs he makes use of terms which had and 
have a well-known significance among men. His 
employment of the term " covenant of salt" as im- 
plying permanency and unchangeableness to a degree 
unknown to men, except in a covenant of blood as a 
covenant of very life, is of unmistakable significance. 

There are indeed incidental references, in another 
place in the Old Testament, to the prevailing primitive 
idea that salt-sharing is covenant-making. These 
references should not be overlooked. 

In many lands, and in different ages, salt has been 
considered the possession of the government, or of 
the sovereign of the realm, to be controlled by the 
ruler, as a source of life, or as one of its necessaries, 
for his people. In consequence of this the receiving 
of salt from the king's palace has been deemed a fresh 
obligation of fidelity on the part of his subjects. This 
is indicated in a Bible passage with reference to the 
rebuilding by Zerubbabel of the Temple at Jerusalem, 
under the edict of Cyrus, king of Persia. " The adver- 
saries of Judah and Benjamin" protested against the 
work as a seditious act. In giving their reason for this 
course they said : " Now because we eat the salt of 
the palace [because we are bound to the king by a 
covenant of salt], and it is not meet for us to see the 



20 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

king's dishonor, therefore have we sent and certified 
the king." 1 

' And so again when King Darius showed his confi- 
dence in the Jews by directing a supply, from the royal 
treasury, of material for sacrifices at the Temple, and 
a renewal of the means of covenanting, he declared : 
" Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to these 
elders of the Jews for the building of this house of 
God : that of the king's goods, even of the tribute 
beyond the river, expenses be given with all dili- 
gence unto these men, that they be not hindered. 
And that which they have need of, t>oth young bul- 
locks, and rams, and lambs, for burnt offerings to the 
God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil, according 
to the word of the priests which are at Jerusalem, let 
it be given them day by day without fail : that they 
may offer sacrifices of sweet savor unto the God of 
heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his 
sons." 2 And again, in further detail: " Unto an hundred 
talents of silver, and to an hundred measures of wheat, 
and to an hundred baths of wine, and to an hundred 
baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much ; " 3 
the more salt they took, the more surely and firmly 
they were bound. 

1 Ezra 4 : 14. * Ezra 6 : 8-10. 8 Ezra 7 : 22. 



IV 

BREAD AND SALT < 



IV 
BREAD AND SALT 

" There would be nothing eatable/' says Plutarch, 
"without salt, which, mixed with flour, seasons bread 
also. Hence it was that Neptune and Ceres [or 
Poseidon and Demeter as the Greeks called them] 
had both the same temple." l And from the days of 
Plutarch until now, as has been already mentioned, it 
has been customary to speak of the " covenant of 
salt " as synonymous with the " covenant of bread and 
salt; " or as identical with the covenant of food-sharing 
in the rite of hospitality. But the covenant of salt 
among primitive peoples has, and ever has had, a 
sacredness and depth of meaning far beyond what 
is involved in the ordinary sharing of food. 

Even the sharing of water between two persons, or 
the giving and receiving of a drink of water, is a com- 
pact of peace for the time being, as a truce between 
enemies. 2 The sharing of bread, or of flesh, means yet 

1 Plutarch's Sympos. (Goodwin's edition), Book IV. Ques. IV., § 3. 
2 See Trumbull's Studies in Oriental Social Life, pp. 361-363. 

2 3 



24 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

more than the sharing of water. It brings those who 
join in it into the league or treaty of hospitality, by 
which the host is pledged to his guest while he is a 
guest, and for a reasonable time after his departure. 1 

Durzee Bey, a native chieftain in Mesopotamia, 
having put a bit of roast meat into the mouth of Dr. 
Hamlin, as they sat together in his domicil, said : " By 
that act I have pledged you every drop of my blood, 
that while you are in my territory no evil shall come 
to you. For that space of time we are brothers." 2 
" Where enmity subsists, the fiercer Arabs will not sit 
down at the same table with their adversary ; sitting 
down together betokens reconciliation." 3 

A covenant of salt is, however, permanent and un- 
alterable, as the truce or treaty is not. Yet this dis- 
tinction, recognized by Orientals, does not seem to be 

1 See Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 294 f. ; Beduinenund Wahaby, 
p. 144 f. ; Niebuhr's Beschreibung von Arabien, p. 48 ; Lane's The 
Thousand and One Nights, II., 423, note 21 ; Wetzstein's Sprachliches, 
p. 28 f. ; Denham and Clapperton's Travels and Discoveries in Africa, 
p. xli ; Warburton's The Crescent and the Cross, fifth ed., II., 167 f. ; 
Pierrotti's Customs and Traditions of Palestine, p. 210 f. ; Burton's Pil- 
grimage to El Medinah and Meccah, III., 86; Thomson's The Land 
and the Book, II., 40-43; Merrill's East of the Jordan, pp. 488-491; 
Harmer's Observations, fifth ed., I., 388 ~f. ; Doughty's Travels in 
Arabian Deserts, I., 228 ; Studies in Oriental Social Life, pp. 73-142 ; 
W. Robertson Smith's Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 149 f. 
Compare also Gen. 24 : 12-14 I Deut. 23 : 3, 4 ; 1 Sam. 25 : 10, 11 ; 1 Kings 
18:4; Job 22 : 7 ; Matt. 10 : 42 ; Mark 9 : 41 ; John 4 : 9. 

8 Hamlin's Among the Turks, p. 175 f. 

8 Russell's Natural History of Aleppo, Book II., chap. 4 (I., 232). 



ALI BABA' AND THE ROBBER CAPTAIN 2$ 

observed by all writers on Oriental customs, even by 
those who are generally observant and experienced. 

It is true that the sharing of salt is usually an ac- 
companiment of bread-sharing; hence, a covenant of 
salt between two parties is generally, although not 
always, made by their partaking of bread and salt 
together. Moreover, because salt is a common in- 
gredient in Oriental bread, the eating of bread with 
another in the East may include the sharing of salt 
with him ; but in such a case it is the salt, and not the 
bread, which is the nexus of the perpetual covenant, 
in its distinction from the temporary compact of hos- 
pitality in the sharing of bread. The bread is the 
vehicle of the covenant-making salt. Indeed, they 
have it for a proverb among Arabs and Syrians, " My 
bread had no salt in it," as a mode of accounting for 
any act of treachery, or failure in fidelity toward one 
who was a partaker of the bread of hospitality. 

In the famous Oriental story of " Ali Baba and the 
Forty Thieves," the captain of the robber band who 
had visited Ali Baba in order to murder him was un- 
willing to partake of any food which had salt in it. 
This carefulness it was that excited the suspicion of 
Morgiana, the faithful slave girl, and led her to ask, 
"Who is he that eateth [only] meat wherein is no 
salt? " And when she recognized the robber captain 



26 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

under his disguise, she said to herself: "So ho ! this 
is the cause why the villain eateth not of salt, for that 
he seeketh now an opportunity to slay my master, 
whose mortal enemy he is." 1 This man was ready 
enough to partake of bread and flesh as a guest, and 
then strike his host to the heart in violation of all the 
obligations of hospitality ; as, indeed, has been done in 
many a case in the East in early and in recent times, 2 
but he could not consent, robber and murderer as he 
was, to disregard a sacred " covenant of salt" 

The story of the origin of the dynasty of the Saf- 
faride Kaleefs, in the ninth century, is an illustration 
of the surpassing power of the covenant of salt. Laiss- 
el-Safar, or Laiss the coppersmith, was an obscure 
worker in brass and copper, in Khorassan, a province 
of Persia. His son Yakoob wrought for a time at his 
father's trade, and then became a robber chieftain. 

Having on one occasion found his way by night 
through a subterranean passage into the treasury of 
the palace of the governor, Nassar Seyar, who was 
then in control of Seiestan, Yakoob gathered jewels 
and costly stuffs, and was proceeding to carry them 

1 Burton's Thousand and One Nights, " Supplemental Nights," 
HI., 398 f- 

2 See, for example, Layard's account of the murder of a Koordish Bey 
by Ibraheem Agha, after the latter had risen from the table of the former 
(Nineveh and its Remains, I., 96 f. ) ; also his account of other murder- 
ous violations of the rites of hospitality (Ibid., I., 107! ; Nineveh and 
Babylon, p. 38). 



FOUNDER OF SAFFARIDE DYNASTY 27 

off Striking his bare foot, in the darkness, against a 
hard and sharp substance on the floor of the room, he 
thought it might be a jewel, and stooped to pick it 
up. Putting it to his tongue, to test it after the man- 
ner of lapidaries, he discovered that it was rock salt 
that he had tasted in the governor's palace. At once 
he threw down his bale of stolen goods, and left the 
palace by the way he had entered. 

The signs of attempted robbery being found the 
next morning, the governor caused a proclamation to 
be made throughout the city, that, if the man who had 
entered the treasury would make himself known at the 
palace, he should be pardoned, and should be shown 
marks of special favor. Yakoob accordingly presented 
himself at the palace, and freely told his story. The 
governor felt that a man who would hold thus sacred 
the covenant of salt could be depended on, and Yakoob 
was given a position near his person. 

Step by step Yakoob went forward to power and 
honors, until he was chief ruler of Khorassan, and 
founder of the Saffaride dynasty in the Persian kha- 
leefate. He died A.D. 878, and was succeeded by 
his brother, Omar II. 1 

Baron du Tott, the Hungarian French traveler 
among the Turks and Tatars, tells of his experience 

1 Price's Mohammedan History, II., 229 f. 



28 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

in this line with one Moldovanji Pasha, who desired a 
closer intimacy than was practicable in the brief time 
the two were to be together. " I had already," says 
the Baron du Tott, " attended him halfway down the 
staircase [of my house], when stopping, and turning 
briskly to one of my domestics who followed me, 
' Bring me directly,' said he, 'some bread and salt' I 
was not less surprised at this fancy than at the haste 
which was made to obey him. What he requested 
was brought, when, taking a little salt between his 
fingers, and putting it with a mysterious air on a bit 
of bread, he ate it with a devout gravity, assuring me 
that I might now rely on him." l 

Stephen Schultz, in his Travels through Europe, 
Asia, and Africa, gives this illustration of the binding 
force of the covenant of salt : "On the 13th of June 
[1754] the deacon, Joseph Diab, a custom-house 
clerk, was at table with us. Referring to the salt 
which stood on the table, he said that the Arabs make 
use of it as a token of friendship. While they are 
fond of it, they do not like to place it on the table. 
On one occasion, when he was with a caravan travel- 
ing to Babel [Bagdad], they came into a neighbor- 
hood where Arabs were encamped. In the caravan 

1 Baron du Tott's Memoirs of the Turks and Tartars, Part I., p. 214, 
quoted in Bush's Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures. 



THE SALT ALLIANCE 29 

was a rich merchant. Seeing that one of the Arabs 
was making ready to come to the caravan, he buried 
his money in the ground, built a fire over it, and then 
sat down to eat with the others near the fire. When 
the Arabs arrived they were welcomed pleasantly, and 
invited, to eat. They accepted the invitation and sat 
down at the table. But when their leader saw the 
salt on the table, he said to the merchant, ' My loss is 
your gain ; for as I have eaten at a table on which is 
salt, I cannot, must not, harm you.' When that 
caravan started on its way, the Arab leader not only 
refrained from taking what he had intended to de- 
mand, but he escorted them without reward as far as 
the Euphrates, and gave them over into the care of 
the Pasha of Bagdad, as friends of his prince Achsam. 
They were now safe." 

Schultz adds : " It is not customary among Arabs 
to place salt on a common table, but only when an 
Arab prince enters into an alliance with a pacha, which 
is called baret-millah, or the salt alliance. This is 
done as follows : The Arab prince, when he wishes to 
live within the jurisdiction of a pacha sends messen- 
gers to him to ask whether he may dwell in his terri- 
tory as an ally. If the pacha consents, he sends mes- 
sengers to the prince, informing him that they will 
meet on such a day. When the day arrives the pacha 



30 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

rides out to meet the prince, in the field which he has 
selected for his dwelling, and conducts him to his own 
quarters. Then the Arab prince asks the pacha how 
much he is to pay for permission to dwell in that field. 
The bargain is soon concluded, according to the ex- 
tent of the Arab encampment. 

" As soon as the bargain is concluded, a repast is 
prepared, and a salt-cellar, with some pieces of bread 
on a flat dish, is carried round the apartment by the 
pacha's servants. The dish is first presented to the 
pacha, who takes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, 
and, holding it between two fingers toward the prince, 
calls out, ' Salaam ! ' that is Peace, ' I am the friend 
of your friend, and the enemy of your enemy.' The 
dish is now presented to the Arab prince, who like- 
wise takes a piece of bread, dips it in the salt, and 
says to the pacha, ' Peace ! I am the friend of your 
friend, and the enemy of your enemy ! ' Thereupon 
the dish with the bread is handed to the chief men of 
the Arab prince, and to the ministers of the pacha, who 
receive it in the same manner as their principals ; with 
the exception that they simply say, on taking the 
bread, ' Salaam ! ' ' Peace ' " * 

Don Raphel speaking of the "conventions," or 

1 Schultz's Leitungen des H'ochsten nach seinem Rath auf den Reisen 
durch Europa, Asia, und A/rika, Part V., p. 246, quoted in Rosenmuller's 
Des alte und neue Morgenland, II., 152 f. 



CUSTOM OF THE DRUZES 3 1 

rather the "covenants," which are recognized by the 
Bed'ween as sacredly binding on them, says : " One 
kind of these conventions is made by their putting 
some grains of salt with pieces of bread into each 
other's mouths, saying, ' By the rite of bread and 
salt,' or, 'By this salt and bread, I will not betray 
thee.' No oath is added ; for the more sacred an 
oath appears to be, the more easily does an Arab vio- 
late it. But a convention concluded in this manner 
derives its force merely from opinion, and this is in- 
deed extraordinary. ... If a stranger who meets with 
them in the desert, or comes to a camp, or before he 
departs from a city, can oppose this alliance to their 
rapacity, his baggage and his life are more safe, even 
in the midst of the desert, than during the first days 
of his journey with the securities of twenty hostages. 
The Arab with whom he has eaten bread and salt, 
and all the Arabs of his tribe, consider him as their 
countryman and brother. There is no kind of respect, 
no proof of regard, which they do not show him." 1 

Volney says of the Druzes, "When they have con- 
tracted with their guests the sacred engagement of 
bread and salt, no subsequent event can make them vio- 
late it." 2 This Volney illustrates by notable incidents. 

1 Don Raphel's The Bedouins, or Arabs of the Desert, Part II, p. 59 ; 
quoted in Burder' s Oriental Customs, 2d ed. , p. 72 f. 
2 Volney' s Travels, II., 76. 



32 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

Mrs. Finn, wife of the English consul at Jerusalem, 
who was long resident in the East, gives the following 
illustration of the importance of salt as well as bread 
to a binding covenant. After a feast in the Hebron 
district of Palestine, one of the persons who shared it 
was waylaid and murdered by hired assassins. " One 
of the men (Abdallah) concerned in the deed, not as 
an actor, but as spectator, had been the night before 
actually eating with the victim. On hearing what had 
happened, the poor fellah woman who had cooked 
their supper, and who was much attached to the 
murdered man, bewailed herself, beating her breast 
and crying, ' Wo is me ! wo is me ! I left out the 
salt by mistake when making the bread last night for 
their supper. Oh that I had put it in ! then would 
not Abdallah have dared to let my lord be murdered 
in his presence ; he would have been compelled to 
defend him after eating his bread and salt. Wo is 
me ! wo is me !' Ml 

John Macgregor, while on the upper Jordan in his 
canoe Rob Roy, was taken prisoner by the Arabs. 
As he parleyed with the old shaykh in his tent, Mac- 
gregor opened a box of fine salt and proffered a pinch 
of it to his captor. The shaykh had never before seen 
salt so white and fine, and, therefore, thinking it was 

1 Survey of Western Palestine, Special Papers, p. 355. 



JOHN MACGREGOR' S EXPERIENCE 33 

sugar, he tasted it. Instantly Macgregor put a portion 
also into his own mouth, and with a loud, laughing 
shout he clapped the old shaykh on his back. 

The shaykh was dumbfounded. His followers won- 
dered what had happened. '"What is it?' all asked 
from him. ' Is it sukker ? ' He answered demurely, 
' La, meleh ! ' ("No, it's salt ! ") Even his home secre- 
tary laughed at his chief." "We had now eaten salt 
together," says Macgregor, "and in his own tent, and 
so he was bound by the strongest tie, and he knew 
it" The result was that Macgregor and his canoe 
were carried back in triumph to the river, and speeded 
on their way, while the people on the banks shouted 
"salaams" to their brother in the covenant of salt 1 

Salt alone is a basis of an enduring covenant, but 
bread alone is not so. Yet bread and salt may be 
such a basis, because there is salt as well as bread 
there. So commonly does salt go with bread that it 
is the exception when they are not together. Our 
English Bible asks, at Job 6 : 6, "Can that which hath 
no savor be eaten without salt? " But the Septuagint 
reads : "Can bread be eaten without salt? " 2 

In India it is much the same as in Arabia, Pales- 
tine, and Persia. In the Mahabharata, the great 

1 Macgregor* s The Rob Roy on the Jordan, p. 259 f. 
2 See Sweet's version of The Septuagint, in loco. 



34 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

treasure-house of Hindoo wisdom, the covenant of 
bread and salt finds specific recognition. When 
Krishna urges the hero Kama to join with him in the 
war against the Kauravas, he says to him : " If you 
will accompany me and join the Pandavas, they will 
all respect you as their elder brother, and exalt you 
to the sovereignty." But Kama cannot be persuaded 
to this treacherous course, although he knows that to 
be true will cost him his life. " I have seen bad 
omens," he says, " and I know I shall be slain ; but I 
have eaten the bread and salt of the Kauravas, and 
I am resolved to fight on their side." ' 

Again, when Yudhishthira asked permission of 
Bhishma and Drona to fight against the Kauravas, 
they granted his request, and at the same time said : 
"We fight on the side of the Kauravas because for 
many years we have eaten their bread and salt, or 
otherwise we would have fought for you." 2 

In Madagascar also the covenant of salt is known, 
as in other parts of the East. 3 And thus on every 
continent and on the islands of the sea. 

1 Wheeler's History of India, I., 271. 
2 Ibid., I., 297 f. Compare this with Ezra 4 : 1-14. 
3 M. Hamelin's Adventures in Madagascar, quoted in "The Madagas- 
car News," Sept. 9, 1893. 



V 

SALT REPRESENTING BLOOD 



V 
SALT REPRESENTING BLOOD 

There are indications in the customs of primitive 
peoples that " blood " and " salt " are recognized as 
in some sense interchangeable in their natures, quali- 
ties, and uses. And in this, as in many another mat- 
ter, the trend of modern science seems to be in the 
line of primitive indications. 

Peoples who have not salt available are accustomed 
to substitute for it fresh blood, as though the essential 
properties of salt were obtainable in this way. An 
observant medical scientist, writing of his travels in 
eastern Equatorial Africa, tells of the habit of the 
Masai people of drinking the warm blood fresh from 
the bullocks they kill; and this he characterizes as "a 
wise though repulsive " proceeding, " as the blood 
thus drunk provided the salts so necessary in human 
economy ; for the Masai do not partake of any salt in 
its common form." l 

Similarly, Dr. David Livingstone noted the fact that 

1 Thomson's Through Masai Land, p. 430. 

37 



38 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

when he was among peoples who had difficulty in pro- 
curing salt, fresh -killed meat seemed to satisfy the 
natural craving for salt, while vegetable diet without 
salt caused indigestion. 1 In portions of China, also, 
where salt is not obtainable, or where it is too expen- 
sive for ordinary use, the blood of pigs or fowls is 
carefully preserved and eaten as if a substitute for salt. 

Professor Bunge of Basel, who is quite an authority 
in the realm of physiological and pathological chem- 
istry, speaking on the relation of salt and blood, says 
that " at every period, in every part of the world, and 
in every climate, there are people who use salt as well 
as those who do not. The people who take salt, 
though differing from each other in every other re- 
spect, are all characterized by a vegetable diet ; in 
the same way, those who do not use any salt are all 
alike in taking animal food." 

He says, moreover : " It is . . . noteworthy that the 
people who live on an animal diet without salt, care- 
fully avoid loss of blood when they slaughter the 
animals. This was told me by four different natural- 
ists who have lived among flesh-eaters in various parts 
of northern Russia and Siberia. The Samoyedes, 
when dining off reindeer flesh, dip every mouthful in 
blood before eating it. The Esquimaux in Greenland 

1 Livingstone's Travels in South Africa^ p. 26 f., 6oq. 



SALT AND SALTS 39 

are said to plug the wound as soon as they have killed 
a seal." Like testimony comes from India, Arabia, 
Africa, Australia, and various parts of America. 1 

The Jews of to-day, who are careful to drain the 
blood from slaughtered animals prepared for food, 
are accustomed to put salt freely on the meat thus 
drained. This is in accordance with the prescription 
of the Talmud, for the purpose of absorbing the blood 
not drawn out from the main bloodvessels. At the 
close of two hours from the slaughtering, the meat is 
washed for cooking. Whatever be the reason ren- 
dered for this application of salt, and its remaining on 
the flesh for a time, may there not thus be an in- 
stinctive supplying of the salts taken away by drain- 
ing out the blood ? 

"Salt" and " salts" are terms often used interchange- 
ably in the common mind. While they are distinct as 
employed by a scientist, it is not to be wondered at 
that they are confused by those who fail to note the 
differences ; nor is it important to consider these 
differences in primitive thought and customs. 

" A salt," as the chemists use the term, is a com- 
bination of an acid and a base. There are many salts 
in use in the world ; among these the one best known 

1 Bunge's Text-Book of Physiological and Pathological Chemistry, 
Wooldridge's translation, pp. 122-129. 



40 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

and most widely used and valued is sod'um chloride, 
or what is popularly known as "common salt" This 
has been used and prized, the world over, among all 
classes of men, from the earliest historic times. 

Salt has long been popularly claimed as an im- 
portant element of the liquids of the body, as shown 
in the blood, in the tears, and in the perspiration, of 
mankind. Later scientific experiments have con- 
firmed ancient and traditional claims, that saline 
injections avail like blood transfusion for the preser- 
vation of life in an emergency. 1 

It has long been common among ordinary people to 
administer salt to one taken with a hemorrhage of the 
lungs, or stomach, or nose. This is the folk-lore 
remedy in many regions. Moreover, under careful 
medical and surgical direction it is now customary in 
the hospitals to keep on hand a warm solution of salt 
to inject into the veins or tissues of persons brought 
in sinking from a sudden loss of blood. Whatever 
connection the two ideas — the popular and the scien- 
tific — may or may not have, it is not to be wondered 
at that it has long been thought that, when blood has 
gone out from the body, salt might well go in. 



1 See Des Injections sous-cutanees massives de Solutions salines, par le 
Dr. L. Fourmeaux, Paris, 1897, pp. 5-7 ; also Quain's Diet, of Med., art. 
"Transf. of Salt." 






TATAR TRADITION OF SALT 41 

Blood transfusion, by which the blood or life of a 
stronger or fresher person may permeate the being of 
a sinking one, has been known of for centuries, and 
there are at least traces of it in tradition from the 
earliest ages. 1 More recent experiments have shown 
that a saline solution is even safer and more efficacious 
than the warm blood from another life ; now, therefore, 
this has largely taken the place of blood in supplying 
the waste occasioned by severe hemorrhages. 2 Various" 
illustrations of this treatment are given as showing that 
when persons were in a very low condition through 
loss of blood, they have been rescued and restored 
through copious injections of a saline solution. 3 

The use of blood as food was forbidden to Noah 
and his sons after the Flood. 4 A tradition of the 
Turkish or Tatar nations says that Noah's son Japheth 
was their immediate ancestor, and that Toutug, or 
Toumuk, a grandson of Japheth, discovered salt as an 
article of diet by accidentally dropping a morsel of 
food on to salt earth, and thus becoming acquainted 

1 l See Blood Covenant, pp. 115-126, with references to Pliny, and to 
Roussel, and others. See, also, Dr. Thomas G. Morton's Transfusion of 
Blood ; W. H. Howell's American Text Book of Physiology, p. 362. 
2 See Dr. Bartholow's Hypodermatic Medication, pp. 126-142. 
3 See, for example, Capital Operations withottt Anesthesia and the Use 
of Large Saline Infusion in Acute Ancemia, a paper read by Dr. Buchanan 
before the National Association of Railway Surgeons, pp. 18, 79. 
* Gen. 9 : 4. 



42 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

with the savor of salt. 1 This carries back the tradi- 
tional discovery of salt to the age when blood was 
first forbidden as food. 

It was long ago claimed by some that the red cor- 
puscles of the blood are dependent for their color and 
vitality on the presence of salt, and recent scientific 
experiments and discussion have continued in the 
direction of the question thus raised. 2 

It has been shown by experiment that many of 
the lower animals, as well as man, are dependent for 
their life on salt in their blood. " When an animal is 
fed with a diet as far as possible free from salts, but 
otherwise sufficient, it dies of salts-hunger. The blood 
first loses inorganic material, then the organs. The 
total loss is very small in proportion to the quantity 
still retained in the body ; but it is sufficient to cause 
the death of a pigeon in three weeks, and of a dog 
in six, with marked symptoms of muscular and ner- 
vous weakness." 3 A mode of torture in former ages is 
said to have been to deprive a person of salt, and cause 
him to waste away with painful salt-hunger. It is said 
that this mode of torture is still employed in China. 

An Armenian story says that when a band of their 

1 Price's Mohammedan History, II., 458. 
2 See W. H. Howell's American Text Book of Physiology, p. 334. 
3 Voit, cited in Stewart's Manual of Physiology, Bailliere, Tindall, 
and Cox, 1895. 



DR. STEVENS'S THEORY 43 

people was in a stronghold of the mountains, and was 
besieged by the Turks, the latter failing to subdue the 
former by other means cut off the supply of salt from 
the Armenians, and this quickly subdued them. 

In 1830, a paper by Dr. W. Stevens, read before 
the London College of Physicians, and afterwards 
elaborated and published in a volume, contended that 
the salient ingredients of the blood, "the chief of which 
is common culinary salt, ... is the cause of the red 
color, of the fluidity, and of the stimulating property, of 
the vital current." Dr. Stevens claimed that the poison 
of the rattlesnake, and various other poisons, operate 
directly on the blood, and produce disease or death 
"by interfering with the agency of the saline matter." * 

" On the subject of the poison of the rattlesnake," 
Dr. Stevens, in this work, asserts that "when the 
muriate of soda (common salt) is immediately ap- 
plied to the wound, it is a complete antidote. 'When 
an Indian,' he says, 'is bitten by a snake, he applies 
a ligature above the part, and scarifies the wound to 
the very bottom ; he then stuffs it with common salt, 
and after this it soon heals, without producing any 
effect on the general system.' " In view of the fact 
that it might be objected that the salt is not the 
essential means of cure, but is an addition to the cura- 

1 See London Quarterly Review, XLVIII., 96 (Dec, 1832, 375-391). 



44 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

tive treatment, Dr. Stevens says that he has "seen a 
rabbit, that was under the influence of the rattlesnake 
poison, drink a saturated solution of muriate of soda 
with great avidity, and soon recover ; while healthy 
rabbits would not taste one drop of the same strong 
saline water when it was put before them." 

Dr. Stevens gives various illustrations, out of primi- 
tive customs, and in the experience of modern practi- 
tioners, of curative and prophylactic uses of salt in 
the treatment of fevers, where the condition of the 
blood seems to be a main source of evil. Aside from 
the question whether the claims of Dr. Stevens have 
been substantiated by later researches and experi- 
ments, his investigations and assertions are of interest 
as showing that, in the realm of modern science as of 
primitive practices, salt and blood have seemed to 
many to have interchangeable values. 

If, indeed, this theory of Dr. Stevens, elaborated so 
carefully in the first third of the nineteenth century, 
in which he claims that salt practically represents 
blood, stood all by itself in the history of medicine, it 
would have less importance than it has in a formal 
treatise of this kind ; yet even then it would show that 
such an idea had before now found a place in the 
human mind. But it by no means stands thus alone ; 
a similar claim has been made both earlier and later. 



GUMPELS THEORY OF SALT 45 

Pliny, in his day, at the beginning of the Christian 
era, records it as the common belief that salt is fore- 
most among human remedies for disease, and among 
preventives of sickness of all kinds. 1 He gives promi- 
nence to salt as a cure of leprosy, 2 whereas blood 
transfusion and blood bathing was the traditional treat- 
ment of that disorder. 3 Pliny also speaks of salt itself, 
and of salt fish in large quantities, as a supposed 
remedy for the bite of serpents, 4 this being in the line 
of asserted remedies among the Indians, according to 
Dr. Stevens. Various other disorders, especially of 
the blood, are named by Pliny as curable by salt. 

Seventy years after the treatise of Dr. Stevens, a 
volume, recently published in London by C. Godfrey 
Giimpel on " Common Salt," 5 claims even more than 
Pliny, or any writer since his day, for " the vital im- 
portance of common salt for our whole physical and 
social life." He claims that of all the constituents of 
our life's blood " there is none which can possibly sur- 
pass common salt in its necessity for a strong healthy 
blood," 6 and that both the red corpuscles and the 
white are largely dependent for their normal condition 
on "the presence of common salt in the system." 7 

iffist. Nat., XXXI., 45. 2 Ibid. 

3 Blood Covenant, pp. 116 f., 125, 287 f., 324. 
4 Hist. Nat., XXXI., 41 ; XXXII., 17. 
5 Common Salt : Its Use and Necessity for the Maintenance of Health 
and the Prevention of Disease, p. 1. *» Ibid., p. 37. 7 Ibid., p. 41. 



46 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

A writer in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, not long 
ago declared that the government salt monopoly of the 
British Empire in India (since practically abolished, 
or modified) was a cause of greater evils than those 
resulting from either opium or alcohol. This claim 
is based on the idea that a lack of salt by the com- 
mon people of India tends to a deterioration of 
blood and consequent loss of life. Asiatic cholera is 
said to be promoted by the lack of salt in the blood. 
Men and cattle alike are said to be sufferers from this 
cause, and the soil is rendered less fertile. Whether 
this idea is well grounded is a minor matter ; that the 
idea has been in many minds is not to be questioned. 

Thus it will be seen that in the primitive mind salt 
and blood have seemed to have common properties, 
and to be in a sense interchangeable, while the more 
careful observers in the world of science have rather 
grown toward this thought than away from it. Be it 
correct or incorrect, the human mind has never been 
able to rid itself of the idea. 

Salt is sometimes used in the rite of blood brother- 
hood among primitive peoples, as is also wine, both 
wine and salt being counted the equivalent of blood, 
and the original and the substitute being sometimes 
employed together as if to intensify the symbolism. 
Stanley tells of the use of salt in this rite on the occa- 



SALT FOR BLOOD ON THE THRESHOLD 47 

sion of its performance with Ngalyema in the Congo 
region. 1 And so again in other cases. 2 

It is a common practice in the East to welcome 
an honored guest to one's house by sacrificing an 
animal at the doorway, and letting its blood pour out 
on the threshold, to be stepped over by the guest, as 
a mode of adoption, or of covenant-making. 3 When 
such a guest comes unexpectedly, and there is not 
time to obtain an animal for the welcoming sacrifice, 
it is customary to take salt and strew it in lieu of 
blood on the threshold, — salt being thus recognized as 
the equivalent, or as a representative, of blood. 4 

The measure of love and honor accorded to the wel- 
comed guest is indicated by the cost or preciousness 
of the sacrifice on the threshold. There are traditions, 
at least, of the sacrifice of a son of the host in this way. 
Again a favorite horse has been thus sacrificed. More 
frequently it is a lamb that is the sacrifice. If there 
is no lamb available, a fowl or a pigeon is thus offered. 
The essential factor in every case is the blood, the 
life, outpoured. If, however, no actual blood is ob- 
tainable, salt, as representing blood, is accepted as 
indicating the love and the spirit which prompts the 

x The Congo, I., 383-385. 2 Ibid., II., 21-24, 79-9°- 

3 See Threshold Covenant, passim. 
4 Ibid., p. 5 ; Griffis's Mikado' s Empire, pp. 467, 470 ; Isabella Bird's 
Untrodden Tracks in Japan, I., 392. 



48 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

welcome, According to the giver's means. There 
could hardly be a fuller proof of the identity of salt 
and blood in the primitive mind. 

When a Siamese student was asked by the writer 
whether the rite of blood-covenanting was known in 
his land, he replied : "There is no 'blood covenant' 
so far as I know. The custom is, if two persons are 
desirous to become firm friends or brothers they drink 
together salted water ; then each takes an oath." 
He also suggested that he had heard that in former 
times they drank a fowl's blood in this rite. 

Again, the mode of making a covenant of salt in 
some portions of the East coincides with this sug- 
gested identification of salt with blood in the primi- 
tive mind. In the Lebanon region, where the blood 
covenant, as a bond of union, is still recognized and 
practised, 1 the covenant of salt is also well known, not 
only as between new comers who are to enter into a 
mutual alliance, but as bringing into union friends 
who would be as one. In such cases a sword is taken, 
and salt is laid on its blade. The two friends in turn 
lick of the salt that is to unite them, as if they were 
tasting of common blood after the fashion of the 
" blood-lickers " in Mecca. 2 

1 See Blood Covenant, pp. 5-7. 
2 See Smith's Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 48. 



SALT FOR BLOOD IN ARABIA 49 

Another illustration of this mode is given by Sir 
Frederick Henniker, in his notes of a journey in the 
East in 1819-20. 1 It was a shaykh of the Arabs 
who escorted him from Mt. Sinai northward, who 
cut this covenant with Sir Frederick. On the request 
being made for such an assurance of fidelity from 
the shaykh, "he immediately drew his sword," says 
Sir Frederick, " placed some salt upon the blade, 
and then put a portion of it into his mouth, and de- 
sired me to do the same ; and 'Now, cousin,' said he, 
1 your life is as sacred as my own ; ' or, as he ex- 
pressed himself, ' Son of my uncle, your head is upon 
my shoulders.' " Before this act the two were as 
cousins ; now they were as one, the head of one being 
upon the shoulders of the other. The similarity of 
this rite with that of the blood covenant, in both its 
form and meaning, is obvious. 

This correspondence of salt and blood in primitive 
thought, and in fact, will perhaps throw light on a 
disputed reference in a fragment of Ennius 2 to "salsus 
sanguis " (salted blood, or briny blood). It would 
seem that as the Jews held that the blood is the life, 
and the life is in the blood, similarly Greeks and Ro- 
mans recognized the truth that salt is in the blood, 
and the blood is salt 

1 Visit to Egypt, Nubia, etc., p. 242. . 2 Cited in Macrobius, 6, 2. 



50 THE CO VENANT OF SAL T 

In the second century there were Christian ascetics 
who refused to take wine in the eucharist. Among 
these the Elkesaites and the Ebionites employed bread 
and salt instead of bread and wine. This seems to 
have been a recognition of the fact that salt, like wine, 
represented blood. 1 

Professor Hermann Collitz, of Bryn Mawr, has 
suggested, in this connection, that the very words, in 
Latin, for salt and blood, sal and sanguis, are from the 
same root. 2 

Certainly salt is sometimes used as a substitute for 
blood in primitive covenanting ; on the other hand, 
blood is used for salt among some primitive peoples 
as an essential accompaniment of food. These facts 
being noticed by the author of this volume first sug- 
gested to him the real meaning of the covenant of salt. 

i See Clementine, Homilies, IV. 6; XIII. 8 ; XIV. i, 8 ; XIX. 25, cited 
in art. " Elkesai " in Smith and Wace's Diet, of Christian Biog. 

2 Professor Collitz says, on this point : " The Early European word for 
salt, sal (nominative sal-d, genitive sal-n-es according to Joh. Schmidt) 
which probably goes back to the Indo-European period, may be derived 
from the same root to which the Sanskrit as-r-g (genitive as-n-ds) ' blood,' 
and Latin s-an-gu-i-s (genitive s-an-gu-in-is) belong. The latter, as F. de 
Saussure (Systeme primitif des voyelles Indo-Europeennes ; Leipzig, 1897, 
p. 225) has shown, comes from a root es, which lost its initial vowel if the 
suffix was accented. If we connect the two groups of words, we should 
say that sal is derived from this root es by a suffix al, similar to the 
suffix el in the word for ' sum ' (Indo-European sa'v-el, from root sav), 
or to the suffix a-lo in Greek meg-a-lo-s as compared with meg-a-s. The 
root es is probably the same from which the word for 'to be ' (Sanskrit 
as-mi, Latin sum) is derived, and the meaning of which seems to have 
been originally ' to live.' '" 



VI 
SALT REPRESENTING LIFE 



VI 

SALT REPRESENTING LIFE 

As blood is synonymous with life in primitive 
thought and practice, 1 and as salt has been shown to 
represent blood in the primitive mind, so salt seems 
to stand for life in many a form of primitive speech 
and in the world's symbolism. When, indeed, we 
speak of salt as preserving flesh from corruption, we 
refer to the staying of the process of death by an 
added element of life ; preserving by re-vivifying, 
rather than by embalming. 

Plutarch says of the power of salt in this direction : 
" All flesh is dead and part of a lifeless carcass ; but 
the virtue of salt being added to it, like a soul, gives 
it a pleasing relish and poignancy." 2 All life is from 
the one Source of Life, and in this sense it is that life 
is divine. Thus Plutarch calls attention to the fact 
that Homer 3 speaks of salt as "divine," and that 
" Plato delivers, that by man's laws salt is to be ac- 

1 See Blood Covenant, passim. 
2 Plutarch's Symposiacs (Goodwin's ed.), Book IV., Quest. IV., § 3. 
3 Homer's Iliad, IX., 214. 

53 



54 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

counted most sacred." 1 No other material is thus 
reckoned from primitive days sacred and divine, unless 
it be blood, which is the synonym of life. 2 

An Oriental form of oath sometimes substitutes 
"salt" for "life;" as where the prime minister of 
Persia in a conference with James Morier, secretary 
of the English embassy, at Teheran, early in this 
century, swore " by the salt of Fatti Ali Shah " — the 
then reigning Shah of Persia. 3 Indeed, to swear "by 
the salt" is a common form of asseveration among 
Arabs ; as to swear by the life, one's own or another's, 
is a well-known oath in the East. 4 

Where we would say of one who is foremost in 
inspiriting and enlivening a social gathering, "He was 
the life of the party," the Arabs say, " He was the 
safroi the party." 

The "salt of youth" is synonymous with the viril- 
ity and vigor of life, that show themselves in the age 
of strong passion. Thus Justice Shallow says to 
Master Page : " Though we are justices and doctors 
and churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt of 

1 Plutarch's Symposiacs (Goodwin's ed.) p Book V., Quest. X., #£ i, 2. 

2 Lev. 17 : 11 ; Deut. 12 : 23. Blood Covenant, p. 38 f. 

3 Morier 's Journey through Persia, p. 200. 

4 See, for example, Arvieux on Customs of Bedouin Arabs, p. 43, quoted 
in Rosenmiiller's Das alte und des neue Morgenland, II., 15. 



SALT AS LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT 55 

our youth in us." 1 Iago refers to young gallants in 
their passion, " as salt as wolves in pride." 2 And 
Menecrates refers to "salt Cleopatra" in her loves 
with Antony. 3 Mrs. Browning seems to have a 
similar idea as to the significance of salt, when she 
says -in " A Vision of Poets : " 

" And poor, proud Byron, — sad as grave 
And salt as life ; forlornly brave, 
And quivering with the dart he drave." 

Even in Plutarch's day this truth was recognized by 
the Greeks as possibly having influenced the ancient 
Egyptians to forbid salt to their priests, who must be 
pure and chaste, because salt "by its heat is provoca- 
tive and apt to raise lust" 4 It would seem, however, 
that the prohibition of salt as food to Egyptian priests 
is easier to be accounted for by the fact that it was 
recognized as the equivalent of blood and life. There- 
fore those priests were not to partake of salt, "no, 
not so much as in their bread." 5 

In this line of thought Florus says of salt : " Con- 
sider farther whether its power of preserving a 
long time dead bodies from rotting be not a divine 

1 Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II., Scene 3. 

2 Othello, Act III., Scene 3. 

3 Atitony and Cleopatra, Act II., Scene 1. 

4 Plutarch's Symposiacs, BookV., Quest. X., §£ 1, 2. * Ibid. 



56 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

property, and opposite to death ; since it preserves 
part, and will not suffer that which is mortal wholly 
to be destroyed. But as the soul, which is our diviner 
part, connects the limbs of animals, and keeps the 
composure from dissolution ; thus salt applied to dead 
bodies, and imitating the work of the soul, stops those 
parts that were falling to corruption, binds and con- 
fines them, and so makes them keep their union and 
agreement with one another." l 

Philinus goes a step farther when he asks : " Do 
you not think that that which is generative is to be 
esteemed divine, seeing God is the principle of all 
things ? " 2 And Plutarch adds suggestively that salt 
is by some supposed to be a means of life, not only 
exciting desire for generation, but actually causing 
procreation ; " the females (among the lower animals), 
as some imagine, conceiving without the help of the 
males, only by licking salt. But [as he thinks] it is 
most probable that the salt raiseth an itching in 
animals, and so makes them salacious and eager to 
couple. And perhaps for the same reason they call 
a surprising and bewitching beauty, such as is apt to 
move and entice, halmuron kai drimu, 'saltish.' 
And I think the poets had a respect to this genera- 

1 Plutarch's Symfosiacs, Book V., Quest. X., §g i, 2. 2 Ibid. 






SALT AS LIFE IN THE TALMUD S7 

tive power of salt in their fable of Venus springing 
from the sea." l 

In Central and South America it was deemed neces- 
sary to abstain from salt while praying and sacrificing, 
with a desire to obtain children. So far it was among 
the Maya nations of the New World as among the 
priests of Ancient Egypt. 2 

An Oriental proverb says : " If thou takest the salt 
[the life, or soul] from the flesh [the body] then thou 
mayest throw it [the flesh] to the dogs." This has 
been explained by the rabbis, as considering " salt " 
here synonymous with the soul, or life, of man, which 
comes from God, in distinction from man's body, 
which comes from his parents. " God gives the spirit 
[the breath], the soul, the features, the hearing, the 
organs of speech, the gait, the perceptions, the reason, 
and the intuition. When now the time comes for 
man to depart out of the world, God takes his part, 
and the part which comes from the parents [the 
body] he lays before them." 3 

When Elisha, the prophet of Israel, was met by 
the men of Jericho, as he came from the scene of 
Elijah's translation to enter upon his mission as the 

1 Plutarch's Symposiacs, Book V., Quest. X., §§ i, 2. 

2 See Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific Coast, II., 678. 

3 Niddah 31 a, quoted by Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrowin The Sunday School 
Times for April 28, 1894, 



58 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

successor of Elijah and was told of the death-deal- 
ing power of the waters of the city, his words and 
action seemed to emphasize the correspondence of salt 
with life. " He said, Bring me a new cruse, and put 
salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he 
went forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast salt 
therein, and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed 
these waters ; there shall not be from thence any more 
death or miscarrying [of the land]. So the waters 
were healed [were restored to life] unto this day, ac- 
cording to the word of Elisha which he spake." 1 

A spring of water is in itself so important to a 
primitive people that it is not to be wondered at that 
water is called the Gift of God, and that a living 
spring is looked at as in a sense divine, and that it 
has even' been worshiped as a god among primitive 
peoples. 2 When, therefore, salt, as the synonym of 
life or of blood, is found in a spring of living water, it 
is natural to recognize the spot as peculiarly favored 
of God, or of the gods. Thus "among inland peoples 
a salt spring was regarded as a special gift of the gods. 
The Chaonians in Epirus had one which flowed into a 
stream where there were [as in the Dead Sea] no fish ; 
and the legend was that Heracles had allowed their 

1 2 Kings 2 : 19-22. 
2 See Kadesh-bamea, p. 36, and note, 298 f. ; and Studies in Oriental 
Social Life, pp. 213, 404 f. 



MORE LIFE TO A BABE 59 

forefathers to have salt instead of fish {Aristotle). The 
Germans waged war for saline streams, and believed 
that the presence of salt invested a district with pecu- 
liar sanctity, and made it a place where prayers were 
most readily heard (Tacitus, Ann., XIII., 57)." 1 

There is said to be a salt lake in the mountain 
region of Koordistan, which was changed from fresh 
water to salt, by St. Peter, when he first came thither 
preaching Christianity. He wrought this change so 
that he could influence the people to accept his teach- 
ing through sharing his life by partaking of the salt. To 
this day the tradition remains, that, if the natives will 
bathe in that lake, they will renew their faith. Aside 
from the question of any basis of truth in the legend, 
it remains as a survival of the primitive idea of a real 
connection of shared salt with shared life. 

It is customary among some primitive peoples to 
anoint or smear a new-born babe with blood, as a 
means of giving him more and fuller life. 2 Thus 
among the ancient Caribs, of South America, "as 
soon as a male child was brought into the world, he 
was sprinkled with some drops of his father's blood;" 
the father " fondly believing that the same degree of 
courage which he had himself displayed, was by these 

1 W. Robertson Smith in art. " Salt " in Encyc. Brit., 9th ed. 
2 Blood Covenant, p. 137 f. 



60 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

means transmitted to his son." * In one of the Kaffir 
tribes of South Africa, when a new chief assumes 
authority, it was customary to wash him in the blood 
of a near relative, generally a brother, who was put 
to death on the occasion. In order to give more life 
and character to the freshly elevated representative of 
the ruling family, the family life was drawn from the 
veins of one near him, in order that it might be ab- 
sorbed by him who could use it more imposingly. 2 

The Bheels are a brave and warlike race of moun- 
taineers of Hindostan. They claim to have been, 
formerly, the rulers of all their region, but either by 
defeat in war or by voluntary concession to have 
yielded their power to other peoples, whom they now 
authorize to rule in their old domain. When, there- 
fore, a new rajput, or chief ruler, comes into power in 
any of the surrounding countries, this right to rule is 
conceded, or ratified, by an anointing of blood drawn 
from the toe or thumb of a Bheel. The right of giv- 
ing this blood, or new life, is claimed by particular 
Bheel families ; and the belief that the individual from 
whose veins the blood is drawn never lives beyond 
a twelvemonth, in no degree operates to repress the 
desire of the Bheels to furnish the blood of anointing. 3 

1 Edwards's Hist, of Brit. West Ind., I. 47, referred to in Blood Cove- 
nant, p. 137 f. 2 Shooter's Kafirs of Natal, p. 216, ibid. 
3 Trans. Royal Asiat. Soc, I., 69, ibid. 



SALT A T BIRTH AND A T DEA TH 6 1 

Salt is similarly used to-day, in the East and else- 
where. 1 A new-born child is at once washed and 
salted. If an Oriental seems lacking in life or wisdom, 
oris, as we would say, exceptionally "fresh," it is said 
of him, " He wasn't salted when he was born." This 
idea would seem to be included in the prophet's re- 
proach of Jerusalem : " Neither wast thou washed in 
water to cleanse thee ; thou wast not salted at all, 
nor swaddled at all." 2 

As at birth, so at death, salt seems to stand in 
primitive thought for blood, or life, in washing or 
anointing, in the hope of supplying the special lack or 
need of the individual. Among the cannibals of 
Borneo, on the death of a rajah or chief, the desire 
seems to be to restore him to life if it be possible. 
His body is rubbed or bathed with salt. He is then 
dressed in his best apparel, and placed in a sitting 
posture. In his hands are placed his shield and man- 
dau. If this application of new life and this special 
appeal to action fail to arouse him, he is counted as 
hopelessly dead ; the arms are taken from him, the 
body is undressed, and wrapped in a piece of cloth, 
and placed in the ground. 3 

A traveler in Asia Minor speaks of the practice 

1 Van Lennep's Bible Lands, p. 569. 2 Ezek. 16 : 4. 

3 Carl Bock's Head Hunters of Borneo, p. 224. 



62 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

among the Toorkomans of the mother's dipping a 
child two or three times into a skin of salt water, at 
the time of his naming. This would seem to be a 
primitive rite, and not a Christian one. The father 
of the child meanwhile eats honeyed cake, and drinks 
thickened milk. 1 

Milk is sometimes accepted by the Arabs as a sub- 
stitute for salt, as the essential factor in the covenant 
of salt (the milhd)} Milk is nature's life food, it 
stands for liquid life; two " milk brothers " are some- 
what as blood brothers, brothers by a common life. 3 
"There seem to be indications," says W. Robertson 
Smith, 4 " that many primitive peoples regard milk as 
a kind of equivalent for blood as containing a sacred 
life. Thus to eat a kid seethed in its mother's milk 
might be taken as an equivalent to eating ' with the 
blood,' and be forbidden to the Hebrews 5 along with 
the bloody sacraments of the heathen." 

Milk has been employed instead of blood, and 
again of salt, for transfusion in case of declining life 
from hemorrhage. 6 This would seem to justify the 

1 W. Eassie, in Notes and Queries, 3d series, II., 318. 
2 See references, in W. Robertson Smith's Religion of the Semites 
(p. 252, note), to Burckhardt and to Kamil. 

3 Blood Covenant, pp. io, n. 
* Relig. of the Sent., p. 204, note ; also Kinship and Marriage in Early 
Arabia, pp. 149, 150. 5 Exod. 23 : 19 ; 34 : 26; Deut. 14 : 21. 

6 Quain's Diet, of Medicine, art. "Transfusion of Milk." 



SALT BRINGING LIFE TO FLIES 63 

belief that milk and blood alike represent life in 
popular thought. 

A favorite experiment among young folks is to 
bring life to dead flies by covering them with salt 
When flies are drowned purposely, or by accident, if 
one is taken from the water apparently dead, and laid 
on the table, or on a plate, and covered with common 
salt, in a few seconds the fly will creep out from under 
the salt, and soon fly away as if unharmed. Other 
flies in the same condition, not treated with salt, re- 
main as dead. This has been tried by succeeding 
generations of young folks, and it is one of the folk- 
lore facts in support of the idea that salt is life. 

It may, of course, be that the absorbent power of 
salt clears the trachea of the fly, and thus permits the 
restoration of the natural breathing. Of course, there 
is some explanation of the phenomenon ; but the fact 
remains that the common mind has been affected by 
such things in the direction of the belief that salt is 
life in a peculiar sense. 

After the foregoing pages were already in type, 
it was cabled as news from London that an English 
mechanic claimed to have discovered a method of re- 
suscitating persons who have been drowned. He pro- 
posed to cover the entire body of the person taken 
from the water with dry salt, which is supposed to 



64 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

absorb the moisture, and thus draw the water from the 
lungs and permit the air again to circulate freely. He 
claimed to have revived a recently drowned cat, after 
letting it remain under salt for thirty minutes; and 
that a drowned dog was thus restored in two hours. 

This is simply the folk-lore idea of bringing the 
dead to life by the application of salt as life. Like 
many another folk-lore idea, it is deserving of atten- 
tion because of some possible basis of truth below the 
idea, apart from the question of fact in connection 
with the claim. 

In "The Barber's Story of his Fifth Brother," in 
"The Arabian Nights," is an account of the hero's 
being beaten and slashed until he was supposed to be 
dead from loss of blood, and his other injuries. Then 
a slave-girl, named El-Meleehah, the "salt-bearer," 
came and stuffed salt into his gaping wounds, after 
which his supposed corpse was thrown into a subter- 
ranean vault among the dead. Yet by means of this 
application of salt he was saved to life, and regained 
his pristine vigor. 1 

The references of Jesus to salt would seem to have 
fuller meaning, if "salt" be understood as equivalent 
to "life." Where he says to his disciples : "Ye are 
the salt of the earth : but if the salt have lost its savor, 

1 Lane's Thousand and One Nights, I, 365. 



SALTED WITH FIRE 65 

wherewith shall it be salted ? it is thenceforth good 
for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot 
of men," l he would seem to remind them that they 
are the life of the world, if, indeed, they retain life in 
themselves. And where he says, "Have salt in your- 
selves, and be at peace one with another," 2 he would 
call them to have life in themselves, and to join 
with others who have it, in making their life to be 
felt among their fellows. 

A supposed utterance of Jesus, which has been a 
puzzle to critics and commentators, possibly has light 
thrown on it in this view of salt as corresponding with 
life. Discoursing on life, and the wisdom of striving 
to attain or to enter into life, even at a loss of much 
that man might value here on earth, Jesus, according 
to some manuscripts, said, " For every one shall be 
salted with fire." 3 This sentence is disputed by some, 
not being found in all the more ancient MSS., and its 
meaning does not seem to be clear to any. 4 It is ob- 
vious that whatever else "salted" here means, it does 
not mean "salted." To salt is to mingle, or to accom- 
pany, with salt. Clearly, fire does not do that. The 
Greek is as vague, or as ambiguous, as the English. 

1 Matt. 5 : 13 ; Luke 14 : 34. 2 Mark 9 : 50. 

3 Mark 9 : 49. Comp. A. V. and R. V. 
4 See notes and references in Nicoll's Expositors' f}reek Testament; 
Lange's Commentary ; Meyer's Commentary, in loco, etc. 



66 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

There must be a conventional or popular, a figurative 
or symbolical, meaning in which "salt " is here used. 
What can this be ? 

" Fire " is here spoken of as the synonym, or 
equivalent, or parallel, of "salt." In this figure, fire 
is to accomplish what salt performs ; the work of salt 
is to be done by fire. In what sense can this be true? 
Fire does consume and destroy the perishable ; l it 
does bring out and refine that which is permanent and 
precious; 2 it does try and test and reveal the measure 
of real value in that which is submitted to it. 3 In the 
testing time, " each man's work shall be made mani- 
fest : for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed 
in fire ; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work, 
of what sort it is. If any man's work shall abide 
which he built thereon [on the one Foundation], he 
shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be 
burned he shall suffer loss : but he himself [who has 
builded] shall be saved ; yet as through fire." * 

The whole context of the passage in Mark's Gospel 
indicates that Jesus is speaking of life. He is show- 
ing the way to attain to life. He points to the final 
testing of life by fire. As salt is shown to correspond 
with life, and as this seems to have been understood 

1 Gen. 19 : 24, 25; Exod. 9 : 23, 24; Lev. 10 : 2; 13 : 52-57 ; Matt. 3 r 
12 ; 7 : 19 ; Luke 3:17; John 15 : 6. 

2 Mai. 3 : 2, 3. 3 1 Pet. 1:7. * 1 Cor. 3 : 13-15. 



SEASONED WITH LIFE 6? 

by his hearers, would they not have seen that Jesus 
was pointing out that the measure of life, or salt, the 
reminder of God's covenant with his people, in every 
one of them, would be revealed in the testing of fire ? 

It is, indeed, because salt represents life, that salt 
was to accompany every sacrifice under the Jewish 
dispensation. Not death, but life, was an acceptable 
offering to God, according to the teachings of the 
Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New. 1 
God wants "not yours, but you." 2 This was em- 
phasized by priest and prophet in the history of the 
Jewish people, earlier and later. Paul re-echoed this 
primal thought when he appealed to Christians : " I 
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
God, to present your bodies [yourselves] a living sac- 
rifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reason- 
able service." 3 Without salt, without the symbol of 
life, no sacrifice was to be counted a fitting or accept- 
able offering at God's altar. 

Salt is taken, in the world's thought, as an equiva- 
lent of wit, or lively wisdom, in speech. Thus Paul 
counsels the Colossian Christians : " Let your speech 
be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may 
know how ye ought to answer each one." 4 Because 

1 See Blood Covenant, passim. 
2 2 Cor. 12 : 14. 3 Rom. 12:1. * Col. 4 : 6. 



68 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

the Athenians were noted for their life and wit in 
speech, "Attic salt" was a synonym of truest life in 
conversation. Cicero says of Scipio : " Scipio omnes 
sale superbat" (" Scipio surpassed all in salt," or 
"wit"). 

Pliny after describing the properties and uses of 
salt, says: "We may conclude then, by Hercules! 
that the higher enjoyments of life could not exist 
without the use of salt : indeed, so highly necessary 
is this substance to mankind, that the pleasures of the 
mind, even, can be expressed by no better term than 
the word ' salt,' such being the name given to all 
effusions of wit. All the amenities, in fact, of life, 
supreme liberty, and relaxation from toil [in a word, 
'life,'] can find no word in our language to character- 
ize them better than this." l 

Pliny also calls attention to the fact that "salarium," 
from which we derive our word "salary," was the 
"salt money," bestowed as a reward or honorarium 
on successful generals and military tribunes. 2 The 
idea of a "living," or a support of life, is in the word 
"salary." And so when we say that a man is "not 
worth his salt," we mean that he is not worth his 
living. 

Salt has been employed as money at various times 

i Hist. Nat., XXXI., 41. 2 ibid. 



SALT AS COIN 69 

and in various lands, and thus has been the means of 
supporting life. It has been so in Tibet and in India, 
and in the heart of Africa along from the sixth to the 
nineteenth centuries of our era. Thus even in lands 
where gold is abundant but less valued than salt. 1 

It is said of the people of a province in Tibet, that, 
while they reckon the value of gold by weight, the 
nearest approach to coined money which they have is 
in molded and stamped cakes of salt. " On this 
money . . . the Prince's mark is printed ; and no one 
is allowed to make it except the royal officers. . . . 
Merchants take this currency and go to those tribes 
that dwell among the mountains ; . . . and there they 
get a saggio of gold for sixty, or fifty, or forty pieces 
of this salt money ; . . . for in such positions they can- 
not dispose at pleasure of their gold and other things, 
such as musk and the like ; . . . and so they give them 
cheap." "This exchange of salt-cakes for gold, forms 
a curious parallel to the like exchange in the heart of 
Africa, narrated by Cosmas in the sixth century, and 
by Aloisio Cadamosto in the fifteenth." 2 

Victor Hehn calls attention to the fact that " the 
German copper -coin heller (haller or haller), the 
smallest coin still in use in Austria, referred to in 

1 Marco Polo's Travels, Col. Yule's translation, II., 29, 35, 36, 37, and 
notes to Chap. 47. 2 Ibid. 



yo THE COVENANT OF SALT 

the German saying, ' to have not a red heller,' de- 
rives its name from the salt (Jial\ and the place where 
it was obtained." 1 

Pythagoras, speaking as usual in figurative terms, 
described salt as a preserver of all things, as continu- 
ing life and as staying corruption, or death. He 
directed the keeping of a vessel of salt on every table, 
as a reminder of its essential qualities. 2 

Pliny says, moreover, that there are mountains of 

salt in different countries in India, from which great 

blocks are cut as from a quarry ; and that from this 

source a larger revenue is secured by the rulers than 

from all their gold and pearls. 3 

s. _ In many countries of the world salt is a matter of 

'life,'] government control, its manufacture and disposition 

ize th being guarded as if life and death were involved in it. 

P 1 It is a common saying in Italy that a man must not 

dip up a bucket of water from the Mediterranean Sea ; 

for he might make salt from the water, and so defraud 

the government. 

1 Victor Hehn's Das Salz, p. 72. 

2 See Dacier's Life of Pythagoras (Eng. trans.), pp. 60, 105. 

3 Hist. Nat., XXXI., 39. 






VII 
SALT AND SUN, LIFE AND LIGHT 



VII 
SALT AND SUN, LIFE AND LIGHT 

In Oriental and primitive thought Salt and Sun are 
closely connected, even if they are not considered as 
identical. They stand together as Life and Light 
Their mention side by side in various places tends to 
confirm this view of their remarkable correspondence. 
The similarity of their forms accords with the Oriental 
delight in a play upon words, even apart from the 
question of any similarity in their meanings. 

Pliny, who, while not an original thinker, was a 
faithful and industrious collater of the sayings and 
doings of his contemporaries, and those who had gone 
before him, especially in the realm of material things, 
summed up the popular beliefs as to salt and its uses 
in the declaration that there is nothing better for the 
human body, in health or in sickness, than salt and 
sun, "sale et sole." l 

Not only in the English and the Latin, but in the 
Greek, the Kymric, and the Keltic, this similarity in 

1 Hist. Nat., XXXI., 45. 

73 



74 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

the form of the words for salt and sun is to be ob- 
served. The Greek hah and helios, the Welsh hal 
and haul, the Irish sal and sul, illustrate this so far 
as the form is concerned. 1 As to the signification of 
the words, it has already been shown that " salt " 
represents " life " in primitive thought and speech. 
Similarly the sun was considered "as the life-giver, 
the emblem of procreation." In consequence, "son " 
and " sun " are from the same root. 2 In view of this 
it is not strange that salt and sun, as life and light, were 
considered in primitive and popular thought as the 
means of health and hope for mankind. 

" The root of the word for salt is unknown. The 
name of the sun is apparently a derivation from the 
root sn (or sav) I. To generate. 2. To impel, to set in 
motion, to bring about." 3 If the same be not the root 
of the word " salt," there is at least reason for thinking 
that the meaning of the two words "salt" and "sun " 
are similar, — one gives life, the other represents life. 

To the primitive mind it certainly would seem 
natural to ascribe the creation of salt to the action or 

1 In the Old Irish and the Old Welsh s and h interchange, as they do 
in the Zend. See Table of Grimm, in Sayce's Introduction to the Science 
of Language, I., 305. 

2 Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, at words " Salt," "Son,"' "Solar,'' 
"Sun; " also Kluge's Etymological Dictionary, s. v. "Sonne." 

3 According to Prof. Dr. Hermann Collitz, of Bryn Mawr. Compare 
Joh. Schmidt in Kuhn's " Zeitschrift," XXVI., 9; and O. Schrader, Pre- 
historic Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, p. 414. Trans, by F. B. Jevons. 



SALT AND LIGHT 75 

power of the sun. Peculiarly would this be the case 
with dwellers by the ocean or sea, or inland salt lakes. 
As the sun shines upon the water drawn from the sea 
or lake, the water is evaporated and the salt remains. 
This is the ordinary process of salt-making with all its 
benefits in various countries to the present day. What 
thought is more natural, in view of this recognized 
fact, than that the sun is the generator, or the beget- 
ter, of salt which is life ? If the sun is supposed to 
bring life, in what way does it more directly accom- 
plish this than by this salt creation ? 

This would seem to give added significance and 
force to the words of Jesus as to salt and light. If 
in the days of Jesus it was held, as Pliny says, that there 
was nothing that could help the life of humanity like 
salt and sun, life and light, the disciples of Jesus 
must have recognized a peculiar meaning in the teach- 
ings of the Great Physician as he sent them out into 
the world to heal the sick, and raise the dead, and 
cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons, 1 when he 
suggested that it was what they were, rather than what 
they did, that was to be the help of humanity. In 
the same teaching he said, "Ye are the salt of the 
earth," "Ye are the light of the world." 2 

The recognized meaning of these words in the days 

1 Matt. 10 : 8. 2 Matt. 5 : 13, 14. 



76 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

of Jesus intensified their importance at every use of 
them, as when it was said that "in Him was life ; and 
the life was the light of men." 1 Salt was blood; 
blood was life ; salt was life ; life was light ; blood and 
salt and light were life. 

Among folk-lore customs on both sides of the ocean, 
salt and a candle are carried across the threshold on 
moving to a new house, as if representing life and 
light as needs in a new home. Sometimes the Bible 
also is included, as if in recognition of the true basis 
of all sacred covenanting. There are other folk-lore 
customs connecting salt and light. 2 

According to Professor Dr. Hilprecht, in the old 
Assyrian language, tabtu, "salt," and tabtu, "bless- 
ing," have the same ideogram, and are written exactly 
alike. " This suggests the inquiry whether they are 
not derived from the same root, tabu, 'to be good,' 
and whether tdbtu, 'salt,' was not so called by the 
Assyrians as the great blessing given to man, as 
needed more than aught else for the preparation of 
food and the preservation of life." 

1 John 1:4. 2 See Chap. X., infra. 



VIII 
SIGNIFICANCE OF BREAD 



VIII 
SIGNIFICANCE OF BREAD 

Bread is the basis of a common meal, as blood is 
the basis of a common life. As, in the sacrifices, the 
body of the animal offered in sacrifice was the basis 
of a covenant meal, while the blood was the basis of 
union with the divine ; so in the symbolism of bread 
and wine, in any sacramental meal, or in any meal of 
sacred covenanting between two persons, the bread 
stood for the flesh, and the wine for the blood. So, 
also, when bread and salt are used together, the salt 
would seem to stand for blood or life, and the bread 
to stand for the flesh or the body. 1 

Blood gives life; flesh as food gives sustenance. 
Salt represents life ; bread represents sustaining food. 
In this light those who share salt together are in a life- 
sharing covenant ; those who share bread together are 
sharers in a common growth. Covenant union in 

1 See Blood Covenanf, pp. 182-190; 268 f . ; 350-355. 

79 



So THE COVENANT OF SALT 

sacrifice is secured or consummated by blood-sharing ; 
it is evidenced or celebrated by food-sharing. 

"Milk and honey" seem to be a symbol of blood 
and flesh, or of salt and bread, from a divine source. 
They are supplied to man from the vegetable world, 
through the agency of living animals, by the power of 
the Author of life. They stand for the vivifying and 
nourishing of the body by a providential ministry to 
man. In this light they seem to be viewed by primi- 
tive peoples. The Land of Promise was represented 
to the ancient Hebrews as " a land flowing with milk 
and honey," * and this figure seemed to represent to 
them all that could be desired in the line of God's 
ministry to their material needs. It was many times 
repeated to them, or by them, in this sense. 2 

This symbolism was preserved by the early Chris- 
tians in connection with the rite of baptism. Tertul- 
lian describing that rite says : " Having come out 
from the bath, we are anointed with a blessed unc- 
tion of holy oil; " afterwards "we first taste a mixture 
of honey and milk." 3 

1 Exod. 3 : 8, 17; 13 : 5; 33 : 3. 

2 Lev. 20 : 24 ; Num. 13 : 27 ; 14 : 8 ; 16 : 13, 14; Deut. 6:3; 11 : 9 ; 
26 : 9, 15 ; 27 : 3 ; 31 : 20 ; Josh. 5 : 6 ; Jer. 11 : 5 ; 32 : 22 ; Ezek. 20 : 

6.15. 

3 Tertullian. De Coron., v. 3, adv. Prox. XXVI., de Bapt.v\\. and viii., 
cited in Blunt's Annotated Book of Common Prayer, p. 209. . 



IX 
SALT IN SACRIFICES 



IX 

SALT IN SACRIFICES 

Salt seems to have been recognized as a vital ele- 
ment in sacrifices both in the teachings of the Bible 
and in the customs of the pagan world. In the Lord's 
injunction to Israel, it is said unqualifiedly : " And 
every oblation of thy meal offering shalt thou sea- 
son with salt ; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the 
covenant of thy God to be lacking trom thy meal 
offering : with all thine oblations [offerings bloody 
or unbloody] thou shalt offer salt." l 

An alternative reading of the words of Jesus in 
Mark's Gospel refers to this custom when it says that 
" every sacrifice shall be salted with salt" 2 Josephus, 
in his "Antiquities of the Jews," makes reference to the 
large quantities of salt required for sacrifices. 3 This 
corresponds with the provision of the King of Persia 
for Jewish sacrifices, "salt without prescribing how 
much," 4 — a limitless or indefinite amount. 

1 Lev. 2 : 13. See also Ezek. 43 : 21-24. 

2 Mark 9 : 49. These words are by some critics counted a gloss ; yet 
the fact as a fact, with reference to salt in sacrifices, is undisputed. 

3 Antiquities of the Jews, XII, iii, 3. Ezra 7 : 21, 22. 

8 3 



84 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

In the Hebrew text which the Septuagint transla- 
tors had before them, salt is represented as always on 
the table of shewbread, and as an important factor in 
that memorial offering before the Lord. It reads : 
"And ye shall put upon the pile [of bread] pure 
frankincense and salt, and they shall be to the bread 
for a memorial lying before the Lord. " l Philo 
Judaeus makes mention of this salt with the bread, 
on the sacred table in the Holy Place, and refers to 
the salt as a symbol of perpetuity. 2 

In the directions for the preparation of the holy 
incense for use by the priests in the services of the 
tabernacle, the fragrant gums and spices were to be 
"seasoned [or tempered together] with salt, pure and 
holy." 3 And this incense was for sacrificial offering. 

It is still a custom among strict Jews to observe the 
rite of the covenant of salt at their family table, before 
every meal. The head of the house, having invoked 
the Divine blessing in these words, " Blessed be thou 
O Lord our God, King of the universe, who causest 
bread to grow out of the earth," takes bread and 
breaks it in as many pieces as there are persons pres- 
ent. Having dipped each piece into salt, he hands a 
portion in turn to every one, and they share it to- 

1 Swete's Septuagint at Lev. 24 : 7. 2 De Victimis, § 3. 

3 Exod. 30 : 34, 35, Revised Text, and marginal note. 



THE TABLE AN ALTAR 85 

gether. In cases where there is less strictness of 
ritual observance on the part of modern Jews, this 
ceremony is limited to the beginning of the Sabbath, 
at the Friday evening meal. 

This might seem to be merely a renewal of the 
covenant which binds the members of the family to 
one another and to God ; yet it evidently partakes of 
the nature of a sacrifice, and it is so understood by 
the more orthodox Jews. The primitive idea of an 
altar was a table of intercommunion with God, or with 
the gods. It was thus with the Babylonians, the 
Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Hindoos, the Persians, 
the Arabs, the early inhabitants of North and South 
America, and with primitive peoples generally. l Thus 
also the Bible would seem to count an altar and a 
table as synonymous. The prophet Malachi re- 
proaches, in God's name, the Jews for irreverence and 
sacrilege. " And ye say, Wherein have we despised 
thy name ? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. 
And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee ? In that 
ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible." 2 

The Talmud emphasizes the home table of the Jew 
as the altar before the Lord, to be approached in sacri- 
fice with the essential offering of salt. "As long as 

1 Blood Covenant, pp. 167-190. 
2 Mai. 1 : 6, 7. See also Isa. 65 : 11 and Ezek. 41 : 22. 



86 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

the Temple existed, the altar effected atonement, and 
now it is for the table of each man to effect atone- 
ment for him. It is for this reason that the descrip- 
tion of the altar (in Ezekiel 41 : 22) closes by saying, 
1 And he said unto me, This is the table that is before 
the Lord.' " x 

It would seem, therefore, that bread and salt are as 
the body and the blood, the flesh and the life, offered 
in sacrifice at the home table of the Jew, as formerly 
at the altar of intercommunion with God. 2 

This view of the household table as an altar has 
been recognized by many Jews. Picart 3 says : 

"The German Jew sets bread and salt upon his 
table, but the loaf, if possible, must be whole. He 
cuts it without making a -separation, takes it up with 
both his hands, sets it down upon the table, and 
blesses it. His guests answer, Amen. Afterwards he 
rubs it with salt, and whilst he is eating it is as silent 
as a Carthusian. The bread thus consecrated is dis- 
tributed to all who are at table. If he drinks wine, 
he blesses it as he did the bread before ; takes it in 
his right hand, lifts it up, and pronounces the benedic- 
tion over it ; and all other drink, water alone ex- 

1 Tract B'rakhoth 55 a., cited by the Rev. Dr. M. Jastrow. 
2 Blood Covenant, pp # . 350-355. 
3 Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the 
Known World, I., 245. London, 1733. 



TABLE CUSTOMS AMONG JEWS 87 

cepted, is consecrated in the same manner. The 
master of the family concludes with Psalm 23, and 
then every one eats what he thinks convenient, with- 
out further ceremony. The ceremony of cutting the 
loaf without separation has the same reason to sup- 
port it .; and a passage from Psalm 10:3 is a voucher 
for its solidity. The master of the house holds the 
bread in both his hands, in commemoration of the 
ten precepts relating to corn ; and each finger is 
the representative of one of them. 1 

" The salt as the religious intention of it is typical 
of the ancient sacrifices. Meat without salt has no 
savor, which is proved from a passage in Job, chapter 
6, verse 6. 2 This is civil policy confirmed by religion. 

"A modest deportment at table is much recom- 
mended ; so likewise is temperance and sobriety. 
Their bread must be kept in a very neat place, and 
preserved with all imaginary care. They must talk 
but little, and with discretion at table, because, ac- 
cording to the opinion of the rabbis, the prophet 
Elijah, and each respective guest's guardian angel, are 
present at all meals. Whenever that angel hears any- 
thing indecent uttered there, he retires, and a wicked 
one assumes his place. They never throw down bones 
of flesh or fish upon the ground ; but, however, this 

1 Buxtorf ex Talmud, * /bid., cap. xji. 



88 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

caution is not the result of cleanliness only, but fear, 
lest they should hurt any of those invisible beings. 1 

"The knife that cuts their meat, must never touch 
what is made of milk ; 2 whatever, in short, strikes the 
senses in any manner, must be blessed. They never 
rise from the table without leaving something for the 
poor ; but the knives must be removed before they 
return thanks, because it is written, 'Thou shalt set no 
iron on the altar.' Now a table is the representative 
of an altar, at saying grace before, or returning thanks 
after meal." 3 

That the table was looked at as an altar among 
ancient peoples, is to be inferred from various proverbs 
and practices with reference to it. Thus one of the 
symbolic sayings of Pythagoras is, " Pick not up what 
is fallen from the table." 4 A comment on this is, 
that as the table was consecrated to divinities, what- 
ever fell from it was not to be restored, but to 
be left, as was the gleaning of God's fields, for the 
poor. 5 When the Syrophoenician woman said to 
Jesus, "Yea, Lord : for even the dogs eat of the 
crumbs which fall from their masters' table," 6 she 

1 Dr. Kohler states that the reason for not throwing these fragments on 
the ground, is because the Jews would not disgrace what is regarded as a 
special gift of God. 

2 Because meat and milk are never to be eaten together. See p. 62, 
supra. (Exod. 23 : 19 ; 34 : 26 ; Deut. 14 : 21.) 

3 Buxtorf ex Talmud, cap. xii. 4 Dacier's Life of Pythagoras, p. 116. 
5 Lev. 19 : 9, 10 ; Deut. 24 : 19-21. 6 Matt. 15 : 27. 



SALT IN THE EUCHARIST 89 

spoke in recognition of this primitive truth, that the 
crumbs from the table might be shared by whoever 
hungered. 

A usage in the early Latin Church would seem to 
be in the line of the Jewish thought, that bread and 
salt at the table are a sacrifice, or a sacrament; and 
it would also appear to be in recognition of the fact 
that salt stands for blood, or for life. The catechu- 
mens, before they were privileged to share in the 
Eucharist, were made partakers of the sacrament of 
salt {sacr amentum salis) y — salt placed in the mouth, 
accompanied by the sign of the cross, and by invoca- 
tions and exorcisms. 1 

St. Augustine, speaking of this sacrament, says : 
"What they receive is holy, although it is not the 
body of Christ, — holier than any food which consti- 
tutes our ordinary nourishment, because it is a sacra- 
ment." And, referring to its reception by himself, 
he says : " I was now signed with the sign of the 
cross, and was seasoned with his salt." 2 

In the Greek Church, salt is still deemed an essen- 
tial element of the Eucharistic bread. It is said, in- 
deed, that the salt "represents the life, so that a 

1 Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, Book X., Chap. 2; 
Smith and Cheetham's Dictionary of Christian Antiequities, arts. " Cate- 
cumens,*' " Salt." 

2 St. Augustine's Treatise on Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism, II., 46. 



go THE COVENANT OF SALT 

sacrifice without salt is but a dead sacrifice." The 
same is true of the Armenian and Syrian Christians, 
and Alcuin refers to the fact that, in his day, certain 
Christians in Spain insisted that salt should be put 
into the bread for the Eucharist 1 

Salt is put into the mouth of an infant at its bap- 
tism, in the Roman Church of to-day. 2 In admin- 
istering the salt to the babe the priest says : " Receive 
the salt of wisdom. May it be a propitiation for thee 
to eternal life." 3 All "holy water," in that church, 
contains salt as an essential element 4 At the dedica- 
tion of a church, water mixed with ashes and salt is 
employed for the sprinkling of the corners of the altar, 
and other portions of the church ; and the remainder 
is poured out at the foot of the altar, where the sacri- 
ficial blood was of old poured out in the Temple 
offerings." 5 

In the Brahmanas, of the Vedic literature, salt is 
described as the one "sacrificial essence" which is 
common to both sky and earth. In the ritual direc- 
tions for the "ceremony of establishing a set of sacri- 
ficial fires, on the part of a young householder," the 
sacrificer, under the guidance of the priests, is de- 

1 Smith and Cheetham's Diet, of Chris. Antig., arts. " Elements," 
41 Salt." 

2 Rituale Romanorum, p. 29 f. 3 Ibid. * Ibid., p. 276 f. 

5 Smith and Cheetham's Diet, of Chris. Antig., art. " Salt." 






SALT AS SACRIFICIAL ESSENCE 9 1 

scribed as proceeding to equip Agni, the fire, with its 
proper equipments. He having brought water and 
gold, 1 it is said : " He then brings salt. Yonder sky 
assuredly bestowed that (salt as) cattle on this earth : 
hence they say that salt soil is suitable for cattle. 
That salt, therefore, means cattle ; and thus he 
thereby supplies it (the fire) with cattle ; and the latter 
having come from yonder (sky) is securely established 
on this earth. Moreover, that (salt) is believed to be 
the savor (rasa) of those two, the sky and the earth ; 
so that he thereby supplies it (the fire) with the savor 
of those two, the sky and the earth. , That is why he 
brings salt." 2 

According to the Brahmanas, the first offered sacri- 
fice was a man. When "the sacrificial essence" went 
out of the man in his offering, it went into the horse, 
then into the ox, then into the sheep, then into the 
goat. And afterwards it would seem to have been 
represented in salt. So in bringing salt to the fire for 
sacrifice, there are brought cattle, or animal offerings, 
with their blood and their life. 3 

It is said in Brahmanic explanation of the pre-emi- 
nent value of salt as a sacrificial essence, that it was 

1 Fire is masculine, water is feminine, gold is seed, according to the 
Vedic literature. 

2 Miiller's Sacred Books of the East, XII., 278 {Satapatha Brahmana). 

3 Ibid., p. 50. 



92 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

made thus by an original agreement between the sky 
and the earth. " The sky and the earth were origi- 
nally close together. On being separated, they said to 
each other, ' Let there be a common sacrificial essence 
(ya-^-iyam) for us ! ' What sacrificial essence there 
was belonging to yonder sky, that it bestowed on this 
earth, that became the salt (in the earth), and what 
sacrificial essence there was belonging to this earth, 
that it bestowed on yonder sky, that became the black 
(spots) in the moon. When he throws salt (on the 
.fire-place), let him think it to be that {viz : the black 
in the moon) : it is on the sacrificial essence of the sky 
and the earth that he sets up his fire." 1 

Among the Booddhists in China, where the sacrifices 
are almost exclusively vegetable, salt and wine are 
added in separate cups. 2 This would seem to suggest 
the symbolism of both blood and wine in the offerings. 

Salt had its place in sacrifices in ancient Egypt. 
Herodotus tells, for instance, of the great annual 
festival at Sais, in honor of the goddess Neith, cor- 
responding to Athena or Minerva. Neith was, in fact, 
another presentation of Isis, and was known as " the 
great mother of all life." In conjunction with the 
sacrifices on this occasion, there was the Feast of 

1 Muller's Sacred Books of the East, XII., 278, note. 
2 Morris's China and the Chinese, p. 154. 



EGYPTIAN AND ETRUSCAN SYMBOLISM 93 

Burning Lamps, when all the inhabitants burned, in 
the open air, about their houses, lamps filled with oil 
and salt. He says, moreover: "The Egyptians who 
are absent from the festival [at Sa'is] observe the rite 
of the sacrifice, no less than the rest, by a general 
lighting of lamps ; so that the illumination is not con- 
fined to the city of Sais, but extends over the whole 
of Egypt." l Wilkinson says of these lamps and their 
contents : "The oil floated on water mixed with salt;" 
and he suggests a correspondence of this custom with 
a like one in India and in China. 2 

Friedrich, in his " Symbolism of Nature," speaking 
of this festival, says that the "salt symbolized the crea- 
tion of life, and the light that it came forth from dark- 
ness into existence ; therefore this did well suit the 
festival." And a collector of Etruscan remains, re- 
ferring to the magic lamp still used in Italy, says, 
in connection with these words of Friedrich, that the 
" wick fire seemed so mysterious to the Rosicrucian 
Lord Blaize that he wrote a book on it, and on the 
blessed secrets of salt." 3 

Salt was essential to a sacrifice among the ancient 
Romans, as among the Hebrews. A cake made of 
coarsely ground spelt, or wheat, mingled with salt, 

1 Rawlinson's History of Herodotus, II., 92 (Book II., Chap. 62). 

2 Ibid., note. See also Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, III., 380. 

3 Leland's Etruscan-Roman Remains, p. 324 f. 



94 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

was broken, or bruised, and sprinkled upon the head 
of the victim for sacrifice, upon the fire of the altar, 
and upon the sacrificial knife. Hence the term 
" immolation," or sprinkling with this salted meal, 
came to be synonyinous with sacrificing. 1 Pliny, tell- 
ing of the priceless value of salt, says of it in conclu- 
sion : " It is in our sacred rites, more especially, that 
its high importance is recognized, no offering ever 
being made unaccompanied by the salted cake [sine 
mola salso\y 2 And Ovid says, that "in days of old 
it was plain spelt, and the sparkling grain of unadul- 
terated salt that had efficacy to render the gods pro- 
pitious to man." 3 

There is good reason for believing that it was much 
the same with the Greeks as with the Romans, al- 
though the fact that this is not distinctly declared in 
the classic texts has led some modern scholars to call 
it in question. Barley-meal cakes, with or without 
salt, were certainly employed by the Greeks in their 
sacrifices. 4 And Homer speaks of salt as "divine." 5 
When, therefore, it is considered that salt was counted 

1 Harper's Latin Dictionary, s. vv. " Immolate," " Mola." 

2 Pliny's Hist. Nat., Bostock and Riley's trans., XXXI., 41. 

3 Ovid's Fasti, I., 337. See, also, Cooper's Virgil, notes on Aeneid, 
Books II. and XII. 

* Homer's Iliad, I., 449, 458 ; II., 410, 421 ; Odyssey, III., 425, 441; 
Philo's Opera, 2 : 240. 

5 Iliad, IX., 214. See Eustathius's Commentary, I., 748-750, ed. Basle 
(p. 648, ed. Rome). 



SALT LEAPING UP IN FIRE 95 

essential in sacrifices among the ancient Egyptians, 
Hindoos, and Hebrews, as also later among the Ro- 
mans, it would seem to need proof to the contrary to 
meet the natural presumption that the Greeks also made 
use of "divine salt" in their sacred sacrificial cakes. 

Salt was offered at every little shrine by the way- 
side in Guatemala, in Central America, in olden time. 
It was an acceptable gift to the gods. 1 

Wellhausen, in treating of the remains of Arabian 
paganism, 2 tells of the custom of the old priests of 
throwing salt into the fire of sacrifice, unperceived by 
the worshiper as he appealed to the gods in his oath, 
and of the consequent startling of the offerer by the 
up-leaping flames, as though under a divine impulse. 
Various popular sayings are cited as incidental proofs 
of this custom ; the purport of them all being that salt 
in the fires of sacrifice is supposed to be an effective 
appeal to the gods. 

Pliny says that " salt, regarded by itself, is naturally 
igneous, and yet it manifests an antipathy to fire, and 
flies from it. 3 This would seem to be a reference to 
the tendency of salt to spring up, or flash and sparkle, 
when thrown into the flames. 

1 See Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific Coast, II., 719. 

2 Wellhausen's Reste Arabischen Heidentumes , in Skizzen und Vorar- 
beiten, III., 124, 131. 

2 Hist. Nat., XXXI., 45. 



9 6 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

It has indeed been suggested that the very name 
"salt" was derived (through saltus, " to leap") from 
the tendency of this substance "to leap and explode 
when thrown upon fire." l If there be any proba- 
bility in this suggestion, or in another, and more 
natural one, that saltus was from the same root as sal, 
"salt," it is easy to see that the primitive mind might 
infer that such was the affinity of salt with the divine, 
that, when offered by fire, it leaped toward heaven, 
and so was understood to be peculiarly acceptable to 
God or to the gods, in sacrifice. The Latin verb salts 
has the twofold meaning "to salt" or "to sprinkle 
before sacrifice," and "to leap, spring, bound, jump;" 
and the root sal would seem to be in the Latin and 
the Sanskrit alike. 2 Similarly, the word "salacious," 
or lustful, had this origin. 

It is evident that the primitive popular mind recog- 
nized salt as a peculiarly acceptable offering in sacrifice 
to God or the gods, and that its very name in various 
combinations seemed to suggest the aspiring or up- 
rising heavenward. 

1 See citation of Lennep, and Scheideus, in Richardson's English Dic- 
tionary, s.v. "Salt." 

2 See Harper's Latin Dictionary, s. w. "sal," "salio," "saltus.'' 



X 

SALT IN EXORCISM AND DIVINATION 



X 

SALT IN EXORCISM AND DIVINATION 

The line between sacrificial offerings and offerings 
for the purpose of exorcising evil spirits, or of pro- 
pitiating good spirits, is not always a clear line even 
in the mind of the offerer ; but there are uses of salt 
among primitive peoples which must be placed under 
the head of exorcisms and divinations, and as an 
accompaniment of incantations, rather than under the 
head of sacrifices, even though they may be only per- 
versions of the original idea of sacrifice. 

Burckhardt tells of the burning of salt, by way of 
exorcism, among the people of Daraon, on the borders 
of Upper Egypt and Nubia. His caravan was about 
being loaded for a journey. "Just before the lading 
commenced," he says, "the Ababde women appeared 
with earthen vessels in their hands, filled with burning 
coals. They set them before the several loads, and 
threw salt upon them. At the rising of the bluish 
flame produced by the burning of the salt, they ex- 
claimed, * May you be blessed in going and in com- 

99 



/ 



IOO THE COVENANT OF SALT 

ing ! ' The devil and every evil genius are thus, they 
say, removed." l 

Among Muhammadan Arabs, in and out of Egypt, 
salt is sprinkled on the floors of every apartment in 
the houses, on the last night of the month of Rama- 
dan, accompanied by the words, " In the name of 
God, the Compassionate, the Merciful !" This is be- 
cause the evil jinn, or genii, are supposed to be con- 
fined in prison during that month, and the sprinkling 
of salt, with the prescribed invocation, ensures protec- 
tion from them as they renew their work of harm. 
Salt is also sprinkled on the floor after the birth of a 
child, as a propitiatory offering for mother and child, 
against the influence of the evil eye. 2 

In China, on the eve of the new year, salt is thrown 
into the fire, and the manner of its burning is taken as 
an indication, favorable or unfavorable, for the coming 
year. It is a species of divination by salt. 3 In Japan, 
the burning of salt, or the offering it in this way to 
the gods, is a propitiatory sacrifice in time of dan- 
ger ; and it is scattered at the threshold for a similar 
purpose after a funeral. 4 In Syria, also, the burning 

1 Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, p. 157. 
2 Lane's Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, pp. 41, 188. 
3 Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese, II., 58 f. 
4 Griffis's Mikadoes Empire, pp. 467, 470 ; Bird's Untrodden Tracks in 
Japan, 1., 392. 



BURNING SALT IN EUROPE IOI 

of a lump of salt in the fire is resorted to as a means 
of exorcising the malevolent spirit which afflicts one 
through the ''evil eye." * 

While suspected persons, or persons of doubtful 
orthodoxy, were undergoing the "ordeal of boiling 
water", under ecclesiastical authority, in the Middle 
Ages and earlier, it is said that " by way of extra pre- 
caution, in some ritual it is ordered that holy water 
and blessed salt be mingled in all the food and drink 
of the patient — presumably to avert diabolical inter- 
ference with the result." 2 

Among the folk-lore customs in modern Greece 
salt has prominence in various ways. Salt must be 
pounded on certain days and in a certain way, in 
order to guard against ill luck. Salt must never be 
carried out of the house after dark. 3 

In Scotland and in England, as well as in the East, 
the use of burning salt in exorcism has continued 
in the more primitive regions down to the present 
century. James Napier tells, for example, of the 
treatment to which he was subjected as a child, when 
it was surmised that he had gotten " a blink of an ill 
e'e." He says : "A sixpence was borrowed from a 

1 George A. Ford, in The Church at Home and Abroad, Dec, 1889, p. 501. 

2 Martene, De Antiq. Eccles. Ritibiis, Lib. III., c. vii., Ordo. 19; cited 
in Lea's Superstition and Force, p. 281. 

3 Rodd's Customs and Lore of Modern Greece, p. 156. 



102 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

neighbor, a good fire was kept burning in the grate, the 
door was kept locked, and I was placed upon a chair 
in front of the fire. The operator, an old woman, 
took a tablespoon and filled it with water. With the 
sixpence she then lifted as much salt as it could carry, 
and both were put into the water in the spoon. The 
water was then stirred with the forefinger till the salt 
was dissolved. Then the soles of my feet and the 
palms of my hands were bathed with this solution 
thrice, and after these bathings I was made to taste 
the solution three times. The operator then drew her 
wet forefinger across my brow, — called ' scoring aboon 
the breath.' The remaining contents of the spoon 
she then cast over the fire, into the hinder part of the 
fire, saying as she did so, 'Guid preserve frae a' skith.' 
These were the first words permitted to be spoken 
during the operation." l Mr. Napier adds that while 
in his case the "scoring aboon the breath" was ac- 
complished by scoring with a finger wet with salt 
water, the suspected possessor of an evil eye was 
scored with the finger-nails, or some sharp instrument, 
so as to draw blood. The blood and the salt seemed 
to have correspondent values. 

In the southern counties of England, salt is thrown 
into the fire by way of invoking spiritual aid in behalf 

1 Folk- Lore of the West of Scotland, p. 36 f. 



SALT ON A CORPSE IN SCOTLAND 1 03 

of a lass who would win back a recreant lover. " A 
pinch of salt must be thrown into the fire on three suc- 
cessive Friday nights, while these lines are repeated : 

" ' It is not this salt I wish to burn, 
It is my lover's heart to turn ; 
That he may neither rest, nor happy be, 
Until he comes and speaks to me.' " x 

There seems to be a special value in the sacred 
number " three," in the appeals through salt to the 
spiritual powers. In the Scottish Lowlands, "when 
a dead body has been washed and laid out, one of the 
oldest women present must light a candle, and wave 
it three times around the corpse. Then she must 
measure three handfuls of common salt into an earth- - 
enware plate, and lay it on the breast. Lastly she 
arranges three 'toom,' or empty dishes, on the hearth, 
as near as possible to the fire ; and all the attendants 
going out of the room return into it backwards, repeat 
this ' rhyme of saining : ' 

" 'Thrice the torchie, thrice the saltie, 

Thrice the dishes toom for "loffie" (i. e., praise), 

These three times three ye must wave round 

The corpse, until it sleep sound. 

Sleep sound and wake nane, 

Till to heaven the soul's gane. 

If ye want that soul to dee 

Fetch the torch th' Elleree ; 

1 Henderson's Folk- Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 176. 



104 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

Gin ye want that soul to live, 
Between the dishes place a sieve, 
An it sail have a fair, fair shrive. ' " 1 

In connection with the putting of a plate of salt on 
the breast of a dead body, there were various usages. 
A plate of bread was sometimes set with the salt, and 
again a plate of earth was its accompaniment. And 
different reasons were assigned for the presence of the 
salt there. Napier says that many persons claimed 
for it a value in preventing the swelling of the body 
in process of decomposition, " but its original purpose 
was to act as a charm against the devil, to prevent 
him from disturbing the body." 2 

" Pennant tells us that formerly, in Scotland, the 
corpse being stretched on a board and covered with a 
close linen wrapper, the friends laid on the breast of 
the deceased a wooden platter, containing a small 
quantity of salt and earth, separate and unmixed ; 
the earth an emblem of the corruptible body, the salt 
as an emblem of the immortal spirit [the life]." 3 

Napier adds : " There was an older superstition 
which gave another explanation for the plate of salt 
on the breast. There were persons calling themselves 
'sin-eaters,' who, when a person died, were sent for to 

1 Henderson's Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 53. 

2 Folk- Lore of the West of Scotland, p. 60. 

3 Thistleton Dyer's Domestic Folk-Lore, p. 60. 



SALT IN ETRUSCAN CUSTOMS 105 

come and eat the sins of the deceased. When they 
came, their modus operandi was to place a plate of 
salt and a plate of bread on the breast of the corpse, 
and repeat a series of incantations, after which they 
ate the contents of the plates, and so relieved the 
dead person of such sins as would have kept him 
hovering around his relations, haunting them with 
his imperfectly purified spirit, to their great annoy- 
ance, and without satisfaction to himself." l The 
basis of this plan of vicarious substitution of personal- 
ity would seem to be, in the entering of the "sin-eat- 
ers " into oneness of life with the deceased through 
the salt covenant or the blood covenant, in partaking 
of his body and blood in the bread and salt from his 
breast. 

Leland, in his " Etruscan -Roman Remains in Popu- 
lar Tradition," says that there was, among the Tuscan 
Romans, an incantation, or an invocation, for every 
emergency. " If salt upset, they said, ' Dii avertite 
omen ! ' " 2 In Sicily, a goddess known as the Mother 
of the Day "is invoked when salt is spilt." 3 He also 
cites various incantations and exorcisms, in which salt 
is an essential factor. 4 

A custom prevails in some portions of Pennsyl- 

1 Folk- Lore, p. 60. 2 Etruscan- Roman Remains, p. 12. 

3 Ibid., p. 148. * Ibid., pp. 122, 204, 242, 264, 281, 286, 287, 312, 345. 



106 THE COVENANT OE SALT 

vania, even to this day, of carrying a bag of salt, 
with a Bible, over the threshold, on entering a new 
house for the first time. There are families who 
would not consent to live in a home which had not 
been thus consecrated. 1 This would seem to be a 
survival of the passing over the threshold with an 
offering of blood. A correspondence of this practice 
with ancient Etruscan customs seems to be indicated 
by the collections of Leland. 2 Among the Mordvins, 
a Finnish people on the Volga, salt on bread is placed 
under the threshold of the bride's paternal home at 
the time of a marriage covenant. 3 This may be 
classed with sacrifices or with divination according 
to our idea of the workings of the primitive Mordvin 
mind. 

1 Threshold-Covenant, p. 21. 2 Etruscan- Roman Remains, p. 306. 

3 Ralston's Songs of the Russian People, p. 277 f. 



XI 

FAITHLESSNESS TO SALT 



XI 

FAITHLESSNESS TO SALT 

The fact that in its primitive conception a covenant 
of salt is a permanent and unalterable covenant, 
naturally suggests to the primitive mind the idea of 
treachery as faithlessness to salt. The -Persian term 
for a "traitor" is narnak hardm, "untrue to salt," 
"one faithless to salt;" 1 and the same idea runs 
through the languages of the Oriental world. 

Baron du Tott, referring to the sharing of bread and 
salt, says : " The Turks think it the blackest ingrati- 
tude to forget the man from whom we have received 
food, which is signified by the bread and salt." 2 But 
it is obvious that it is faithlessness to salt, not to bread 
or ordinary food, that is deemed blackest ingratitude. 
This is in India, as in Turkey. Tamerlane, the 
Mongol-Tatar chieftain, speaking, in his institutes, of 
one Share Behraum, who had deserted his service for 
the enemy and afterwards returned to his allegiance, 

1 Gesenius's Thesaurus, p. 790. 
2 Memoirs of the Turks and Tartars, Part I., p. 214; cited in Bush's 
Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures, at Numbers 18 : 19. 

I09 



HO THE COVENANT OF SALT 

says : "At length my salt which he had eaten over- 
whelmed him with remorse, he again threw himself on 
my mercy, and humbled himself before me." * Frazer 
quotes a rebel chief in India as saying, when he 
capitulated after a siege, and was asked if he would 
return to his old allegiance, " No, I can no more 
visit my country ; I must look for service elsewhere. 
I can never face the rajah again; for I have eaten 
Ghoorka salt. I was in trust, and I have not died at 
my post. We can never return to our country." 2 

Burton says that the BedVeen of Arabia denounce 
the Syrians as " abusers of the salt," because they 
cannot be depended on in their agreements. 3 And 
Dr. Thomson says that Orientals " often upbraid the 
civilized Frank because he does not keep bread and 
salt, is not faithful to the covenant of brotherhood." 4 

Burton says also, of the Bed'ween of El Hejaz: 
'"We have eaten salt together" (nahnu malihin) is 
still a bond of friendship: there are, however, some 
tribes who require to renew the bond every twenty- 
four hours, as otherwise, to use their own phrase, ' the 
salt is not in their stomachs.' " 5 And he quotes the 

1 Quoted in Burder's Oriental Customs, 2d ed., p. jj. 
2 Frazer's Journal of Tour through Himala Mountains, quoted in 
Burder, p. 77, at Ezra 4 : 14. 

3 Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah, III., 114. 
* The Land and the Book, II., 41. 5 Pilgrimage, III., 84. 



ORIENTAL SUMMIT OF TREACHERY III 

advice to him of Shaykh Hamid, concerning the Bed'- 
ween who were to escort him from El Medinah, 
" never to allow twenty-four hours to elapse without 
dipping hand in the same dish with them, in order 
that the party might always be 'malihin,' on terms of 
salt." x Treachery on the part of one who has even 
partaken of an ordinary meal with another is, how- 
ever, counted, among Orientals, a peculiar crime, as 
surprising as it is unusual. 2 

Of course, there is no human bond which will guard 
human nature against all possible treachery. These 
references to the measure of fidelity among different 
peoples or tribes are an indication of the relative de- 
gree of faithfulness prevailing among them severally. 
Those who are faithless to salt cannot be depended 
on for anything. If a man would not be true to one 
who is of his own blood, of his own life, and to whom 
he is bound in a sacred covenant of which his God is a 
party, he could not be depended on in any emergency. 
The covenant of salt is all this in the thought of the 
primitive mind. 

Don Raphel says, of the estimate of faithlessness to 
salt entertained by Arabs generally : " When they 
have eaten bread and salt with any one, it would be a 
horrid crime not only to rob him, but even to touch 

1 Pilgrimage, II., 334. 2 Psa. 41 : 9; John 13 : 18. 



112 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

the smallest part of his baggage, or of the goods which 
he takes with him through the desert. The smallest 
injury done to his person would be considered as an 
equal wickedness. An Arab who should be guilty of 
such a crime would be looked upon as a wretch who 
might expect reproof and detestation from everybody. 
He would appear despicable to himself, and never be 
able to wash away his shame. It is almost unheard 
of for an Arab to bring such disgrace upon himself." * 

It was said by the ancient Jews that Sodom was 
destroyed because its inhabitants had been faithless to 
salt, in maltreating guests who had partaken of salt in 
their city. In a Talmudic comment on Lot's wife, 
the record is : " Rabbi Isaac asked, ' Why did she 
become a pillar of salt?' 'Because she had sinned 
through salt. For in the night iij which the men 
came to Lot she went to her neighbors, and said to 
them, Give me salt, for we have guests. But her 
purpose was to make (the evil-minded) people of the 
city acquainted with the guests. Therefore was she 
turned into a pillar of salt.' " 2 

This idea of foul treachery as equivalent to faith- 
lessness in the matter of salt, seems to be perpetuated 

1 The Bedouins or Arabs of the Desert, Part II., p. 59; quoted in 
Burder's Oriental Customs, 2d ed., p. 72. 

2 Rev. Dr. Marcus Jastrow refers to this in an article on " The Sym- 
- bolical Meaning of Salt," in The Sunday School Times for April 28, 1894. 



BIBLE SUMMIT OF TREACHERY it} 

in Da Vinci's famous painting of the Last Supper, 
where Judas Iscariot is represented as having over- 
turned the salt-cellar. 1 And even among English- 
speaking peoples the spilling of salt between two per- 
sons is said to threaten a quarrel ; as though they had 
already broken friendship. 

Gayton, describing two friends (who were proof even 
against this ill sign), says : 

" I have two friends of either sex, which do 
Eat little salt, or none, yet are friends too ; 
Of both which persons I can truly tell, 
They are of patience most invincible, — 
When out of temper no mischance at all 
Can put, — no, not if towards them the salt should fall." 2 

In both the Old Testament and the New faithless- 
ness to a formal covenant is reckoned a crime of 
peculiar enormity as distinct from any ordinary trans- 
gression of a specific law. Transgressing a covenant 
with the Lord is counted on the part of Israel much 
the same as worshiping the gods of the heathen. This 
is shown in repeated instances in the Old Testa- 

1 It has indeed been questioned whether the overturned salt-cellar in 
Da Vinci's picture, as shown in many an engraving of it, was in the original 
painting, as it is not to be seen there now. But it would seem clear that 
the copy of this painting by Da Vinci's pupil, Marco d'Oggoni, in the 
Brera, shows the overturned salt-cellar, while the original painting has 
had several retouchings and renovations. (See Notes and Queries, 6th 
Series, Vol. X., p. 92 f.) 

2 Thistleton Dyer's Domestic Folk- Lore, p. 104. 



114 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

merit. 1 In the New Testament, Paul includes among 
the grossest evil-doers of paganism those who are 
" filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, covet- 
ousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, 
deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to 
God," and so down to " covenant-breakers," and 
those " without natural affection," as among the lowest 
and worst of all. 2 This idea shows itself continually 
in records and traditions, sacred and secular. 

1 Gen. 17 : 14; Deut. 17 : 2-7; Josh. 7 : 11-15; Judg. 2 : 20-23; 
2 Kings 18 : 11, 12 ; Psa. 55 : 19-21 ; Isa. 24 : 5, 6; Jer. 11 : 9-11 ; 34 : 
17-20; Hosea 6 : 4-7 ; 8 : 1. 

3 Rom. 1 : 31. 



XII 

SUBSTITUTE TOGETHER WITH REALITY 



XII 

SUBSTITUTE TOGETHER WITH REALITY 

Primarily it is the blood, as the life, of two persons 
entering into a covenant with each other and with the 
Author of life, that is the nexus of the enduring cove- 
nant 1 Secondarily, it is the blood, or life, of a sub- 
stitute victim offered as a sacrifice to God, or to the 
gods, that is accepted as such a nexus, — the blood 
being shared by the contracting parties, or being 
poured out as an oblation to God, and the flesh being 
eaten conjointly by the parties covenanting. 2 

Yet, again, wine is accepted as representing blood. 
This is not only because wine resembles blood in 
appearance, and is called in the Bible record the 
''blood of the grape," 3 but because wine is actu- 
ally deemed, by many primitive peoples, real blood, 
and is supposed to affect its users as it does because 
it represents the spirit, or life, of the divinity whose 
blood it is. 4 On this point Frazer calls attention to 

1 Blood Covenant, pp. 5-86 ; Threshold Covenant, pp. 193-202. 
2 Gen. 4 : 2-5 ; Blood Covenant, pp. 134-136. 
3 Gen. 49 : 11 ; Deut. 32 : 14 ; Eccles. 39 : 26 ; 50 : 15 ; 1 Mace. 6 : 34 ; 
Blood Covenant, p. 191. 4 Blood Covenant, pp. 139-142. 

117 



Il8 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

the primitive views of Egyptians, Arabians, Aztecs, 
and others, citing authorities from Plutarch to Robert- 
son Smith. 1 

He says, for example : " We are informed by Plu- 
tarch that of old the Egyptian kings neither drank 
wine nor offered it in libations to the gods, because 
they held it to be the blood of beings who had once 
fought against the gods, the vine having sprung from 
their rotting bodies ; and the frenzy of intoxication 
was explained by the supposition that the drunken 
man was filled with the blood of the enemies of the 
gods. The Aztecs regarded pulque, or the wine of the 
country, as bad, on the account of the wild deeds which 
men did under its influence. But these wild deeds 
were believed to be the acts, not of the drunken man, 
but of the wine god by whom he was possessed and in- 
spired. . . . Thus it appears that, on the primitive view, 
intoxication, or the inspiration produced by wine, is 
exactly parallel to the inspiration produced by drink- 
ing the blood of animals. 2 The soul or life is in the 
blood, and wine is the blood of the vine. . . . Who- 
ever drinks wine drinks the blood, and so receives 
into himself the soul or spirit of the god of the vine." 

Naturally, a substitute or representative of the 

1 Frazer's Golden Bough, II., 184 f. 
2 Comp. Blood Covenant, pp. 114, 139-147. 



WINE AND SALT, BREAD AND FLESH 1 1 9 

original, or real, nexus of a covenant, came to stand 
for the primary article with such prominence in the 
popular mind that it would be deemed an essential, 
not only when the real was lacking, but while the real 
was actually present. Therefore we find libations of 
wine accompanying actual blood, in sacrifices, 1 as well 
as used in substitution for it ; so also of other substi- 
tutes, such as saffron water, milk, and coffee, at other 
times. 2 

As salt represents blood and life, quite naturally 
salt is employed in sacrifices, not only where there 
is no blood or life, but also where there is. And 
this accounts for the prominence of salt in sacrifices, 
and elsewhere, where blood or life is essential as a 
fitting offering, and as a bond of union. 3 Both wine 
and salt as substitutes for blood are frequently used 
together, as though one alone were not sufficient 4 

Similarly, bread is a recognized representative of 
flesh. It is so understood in sacred and secular records 
and traditions. When Jesus spoke of bread as his 
flesh, and as his body, 5 and of the fruit of the vine as his 

1 Exod. 29: 40; Lev. 23 : 12, 13 ; Num. 15 : 5, 10; 28 : 14, etc. ; Blood 
Covenant, pp. 63-65. 2 Blood Covenant, pp. 77, 346-350. 

3 Herodotus, Plutarch, and Pliny, cited in Becker's Charicles,p. 330. 
* See pp. 83 f., 92, supra; also Frazer's Golden Bough, II., 67-70. 

5 Comp. Matt. 26 : 26-28 ; Mark 14 : 22-24 ; Luke 22 : 19, 20 ; 1 Cor. 
11 : 23-25. 



120 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

blood, he used terms that in his day, and earlier, were 
known in popular thought as representing the truth 
at the basis of the covenant by which two became one 
in a merged common life. 1 Yet while bread was an 
accepted substitute for flesh, it was much used as an 
accompaniment of flesh 2 in sacrificial feasts. Thus 
bread and salt as recognized substitutes for flesh and 
blood came to be commonly used even where real 
flesh and blood were the main factors in the sacrifice. 
Substitutes for bread, such as honey and flour or meal, 
were, as already shown, also used in connection with 
bread. Hence it is not unnatural to find salt as blood 
accompanying blood itself. This is entirely in accord 
with primitive thought cind customs generally. 

1 Blood Covenant, pp. 171-184. 
2 Ibid. ; Gen. 18 : 1-8 ; 31 : 54 ; Lev. 7 : 11-14 ; 23 : 15-20, etc. 






>c 



XIII 
ADDED TRACES OF THE RITE 



XIII 
ADDED TRACES OF THE RITE 

On the occasion of a sacred alliance between clans, 
or in a treaty of peace at the close of a war, among 
the Kookies of India, there is a formal appeal to the 
gods, in which salt has an important part. A dhar, or 
short sword, is placed on the ground between the two 
parties. On it, as on an altar, " are arranged rice, 
salt, earth, fire, and a tiger's tooth. The party swear- 
ing takes the dJiar and puts the blade between his 
teeth, and, biting it, says, ' May I be cut with the 
dhar in war and in the field ; may rice and salt fail 
me, my crops wither, and I die of hunger; may fire 
burn all my worldly possessions, and the tiger devour 
me, if I am not faithful ! ' " l 

Among the Battas, in Sumatra, the more solemn 
form of their oath is, " May my harvest fail, my cattle 
die, and may I never taste salt again, if I do not speak 
the truth." 2 

1 Stewart, in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, XXIV., 641, 
cited in Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, V., 39. 

2 Wooldridge's trans, of Bunge's Physiological and Pathological Chem- 
istry, p. 126. 

123 



124 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

Among the Dyaks of Borneo, when a question 
arises between disputants for which there is no ordinary 
mode of settlement, each litigant is given a lump of 
salt, which the two drop into water simultaneously, 
and he whose lump dissolves soonest is adjudged the 
loser. 1 

In the Kenyah tribe in Borneo, the ceremony of 
naming a child is made much of. Guests assemble 
on the occasion. After the more private ceremony, 
participated in by a favored few, every guest present 
is given a package of salt and some ginger root, as 
wedding-cake is given in many lands, for a souvenir 
of the occasion. 2 

A custom among Slavic peoples of presenting bread 
and salt to a ruler at the threshold of his domain, as 
he comes on a visit, would seem to combine the two 
ideas of hospitality and of worship. When the Em- 
peror of Russia visits one of his provinces, or subject 
cities, he is met at its threshold by its representative 
rulers, as his loyal subjects, with bread and salt served 
on a golden or a silver-gilt placque. In the Winter 
Palace of St. Petersburg there are hundreds of these 
suspended over the doorways and on the walls, which 

1 Koningswarter, op. cit., p. 202, cited in Henry C. Lea's Superstition 
and Force, p. 257. 

2 On the testimony of Dr. W. H. Furness, 3d. 



IN RUSSIA AND ROUMANIA 125 

placques were thus presented to different emperors 
on the occasion of such visits. 

When the Grand Duke Alexis visited America in 
1872, he was received in this way by the wife of the 
Russian Minister at Washington. "As the Grand 
Duke entered the Legation, Madame de Catacazy 
carried a silver salver on which was placed a round 
loaf of plain black bread, on the top of which was im- 
bedded a golden salt-cellar." x This was obviously 
more than a symbol of welcome to the home of the 
embassy. The Grand Duke came as a ruler and lord 
to his own, and his own received him loyally, with 
symbols of reverent submission. It was more like the 
threshold covenant of the East, when blood is poured 
out from an offered body at the doorway of a house, 
as one who would be honored as well as welcomed 
comes in. 

Some years later there was an account in the Lon- 
don Court Journal of the making in Paris of an ornate 
golden dish for a similar use in Roumania. The 
burghers of Bucharest were arranging to present on 
this dish bread and salt to Princess Marie of Edin- 
burgh, when she should make her first entrance into 
their city as their future queen. The dish was of gold 

1 Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis, II., 
277. 



126 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

worked in a purely Renaissance design, its edge being 
an openwork pattern of interlaced ears of corn and 
branches of laurel. In the center was the salt-cellar, 
shaped like an open tulip, and resting upon four 
graceful stalks. 

In the days of Queen Elizabeth of England it was 
a custom of officials of the palace to rub bread and 
salt on the plates of the dining-table before each royal 
meal. 1 

Among the Kookies of the Hill Tribes in India, 
" whenever they send any message of consequence to 
each other, they always put in the hand of the bearer 
of it a small quantity of salt, to be delivered with the 
message as expressive of its importance." 2 This 
would seem to indicate a life-and-death matter in the 
message. 

An old English custom of having a salt-cellar at a 
certain point on the family table, and of seating those 
present above or below it, gave rise to the phrase 
" sitting below the salt" as indicative of an inferior 
position at the household table. As salt was a sym- 
bol of hospitality and of covenanted union, he who 
was within the scope of salt-sharing at a table was in 

1 Agnes Strickland, Queens of England (Students' Edition), p. 403. 

2 Macrae, in Asiatic Researches, VII., 188 ; cited in Spencer's Descrip- 
tive Sociology, V. 25. 



AFTER A FRESHMAN, SALT 1 27 

a very different position from one who was outside 

of it. 

A reference to this custom by Sir Walter Scott, in 

his "Tales of My Landlord," in the first quarter of 

the nineteenth century, provoked much discussion, 

and doubt was expressed as to the existence of the 

custom in olden time. But abundant evidence was 

produced as to its veritableness. 1 An old English 

ballad was cited, in which one said sneeringly to his 

inferior : 

" Thou art a carle mean of degree, 
Ye sake doth stand twain me and thee ; 
But an thou hadst been of ane gentyl strayne, 
I wold have bitten my gant 2 aganie." 

And one of Bishop Hall's Satires, in 1597, was 
instanced as saying : 

" A gentle squire would gladly entertaine 
Into his house some trencher chaplaine ; 
Some willing man that might instruct his sons, 
And that would stande to good conditions. 
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed, 
Whiles his young maister lieth o'er his head. 
Second, that he do, on no default, 
Ever presume to sit above the salt" 

It was a custom in Oxford University to give salt to 
a student who had concluded his course as a " fresh- 
man," and was finding admission into the company 

1 See Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. I., No. I, pp. 33-35 ; 132-134; 349- 
352; 579-582. 2 Gant; that is, glove. 



128 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

of maturer, or salter, students or sophisters. Drink- 
ing salt and water, or salt and beer, was a part of this 
ceremony. It was called " salting a freshman," or 
" college salting." 1 

A series of plates, illustrative of certain student 
ceremonies at Strassburg University was published in 
1666. "The last [of these] represents the giving of 
the salt, — which a person is holding on a plate in his 
left hand, and with his right hand is about to put a 
pinch of it upon the tongue of each becanus, or fresh- 
man. A glass, probably holding wine, is standing 
near him. Underneath is the following couplet : 

' ' Sal Sophice gustate, bibatis vinaque Iceta, 
Augeat immensus vos in utrisque Deus /" * 

In Hungary, at a wedding, there are customs that 
give solemn emphasis to the truth that two lives are 
newly made one in a sacred covenant. The cere- 
mony is presided over by the Vajda, or chief ruler, 
rather than by any Christian ecclesiastic. He stands 
with his back to a blazing fire as the primitive altar. 3 
When his address is concluded, an earthen vessel is 
dashed to pieces as a symbol of their former life now 
ended. Then the bridal couple are sprinkled with 

1 See Notes and Queries, First Series, I., 261. 2 Ibid., I., 492. 

3 Threshold Covenant, pp. 22 f., 39 ff., etc. 



AMONG HUNGARIAN GYPSIES 129 

salt and brandy, doubly standing for blood on the 
threshold of their married life. 1 

Bread and salt seem to have a peculiar sacredness 
among the Hungarian gypsies. This incident, from a 
gypsy camp, is given in a Hungarian newspaper : A 
gypsy who had lost his cash informed his leader of the 
fact, and at once an order was issued for its restoration. 
The money not appearing, the gypsy chief bound 
two poles into the form of a cross, and fixed one end 
in the ground. On the top of the cross he fastened 
a piece of bread, and sprinkled it with salt. Each 
member of the band was then called to swear upon 
this symbol that he had not committed the theft. All 
stood the test, until the last one, an old woman, came 
forward. As she was about to take the oath, she 
turned pale, put her hand in her pocket, and brought 
out the stolen money. She was then soundly beaten, 
and kicked out of camp. 2 

The primitive idea that the sovereign properly con- 
trols salt as a source or means of life, and that a gift 
of salt from the sovereign lays a new obligation on 
the recipient, as illustrated in the days of Cyrus and 
Darius, 3 shows itself down to our own day. In the 

1 Martyrdom of an Empress, p. 138 f. 
2 See quotation from the Pester Lloyd, in Journal of the Gypsy Folk- 
lore Society, copied in " The Journal of American Folk-lore," Vol. II., 
No. 5, p. 140. 3 See p. 20, supra. 



130 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

days of Arabi Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt desired to 
raise a sum of money, at a time when the people were 
exceptionally poor in consequence of excessive taxa- 
tion and the rigors of a recent famine. Instead of 
relying on the ordinary and obnoxious tax collectors, 
the Khedive resorted to the pressure of the " fidelity 
to salt idea." 

Salt, as a gift, or as an appeal, from the govern- 
ment supply, was sent to every native house. Four 
pecks of salt to every two males in the house was the 
average amount. The salt was laid, by a government 
official, upon the threshold of the house, early in the 
morning, before the inmates arose. Of course, any 
person stepping over that salted threshold was brought 
anew into a covenant with the giver. 1 Later in the 
day Egyptian soldiers called at every house to receive 
what the inmates would give in return. The appeal 
was irresistible. It was not like an ordinary tax, to 
be evaded or resisted if possible. All would do what 
they could. The least that any could think of return- 
ing was the usual price of the salt. Those who could 
afford more were glad to show their fidelity and loyalty 
in a corresponding liberality. 2 

1 See Threshold Covenant, pp. 3-25. 
2 This was told to the author by an Oriental who was residing in Egypt 
at the time. 



XIV 
A SAVOR OF tlFE OR OF DEATH 



XIV 
A SAVOR OF LIFE OR OF DEATH 

That which is a means of life in one instance may 
be a means of death in another. A breath that might 
kindle a tiny spark into a living blaze might also ex- 
tinguish a quivering flame. The breeze that gives life 
to fire in one case gives death to fire in the other. 
And fire itself proves death to that which is perish- 
able, while it gives added value to that which is puri- 
fied in the furnace flames. Salt, like fire, is a symbol 
both of life and of death. In different connections it 
is a preserver and a destroyer. " To the one a savor 
from death unto death ; to the other a savor from life 
unto life." * 

Salt is spoken of in the Bible as destructive of 
vegetable life, and a barrier against new animal life. 
A piece of ground sown or strewed with salt is 
deemed dead land : " It is not sown, nor beareth, 
nor any grass groweth therein." 2 When Abimelech 
captured Shechem, "he beat down the city and sowed 

1 2 Cor. 2 : 16. 2 Deut. 29 : 23. 

U3 



134 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

it with salt." * The Psalmist, speaking of the power 
and ways of God, declares : 

* ' He turneth rivers into a wilderness, 
And watersprings into a thirsty ground ; 
A fruitful land into a salt desert, 
For the wickedness of them that dwell therein." 2 

The prophet Jeremiah says of one who departs from 
God's service that he " shall inhabit the parched 
places in the wilderness, a salt land and not in- 
habited." 3 Ezekiel, foretelling a curse on the land of 
the Jews, says: "The marshes thereof shall not be 
healed ; they shall be given up to salt." 4 And Zepha- 
niah declares that Moab shall become " a possession 
of nettles, and salt-pits, and a perpetual desolation." 5 
Because there can be no fertility for new vegetable 
life, there is no room or hope for new animal lite for 
land thus sown with salt and thus permanently sterile. 
The one great body of water that is called the Dead 
Sea is the saltest sea in the world. Five times the 
proportion of salt in the ocean is found in this inland 
sea of salt " No fish can exist in the waters, nor is 
it proved that any low forms of life have been dis- 
covered there." 6 An ancient legend declared that 
birds could not even fly over its waters, because of 

1 Judg. 9 : 45- 2 Psa. 107 : 33, 34. 3 Jer. 17 : 6. 

4 Ezek. 47 : 11. 5 Zeph. 2 : 9. 

6 George Adam Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 502. 



SALT WATER MOCKING THIRST 1 35 

the curse from heaven on its briny depths. 1 Yet this 
doomed and dead sea of salt is a source of life to man 
in its exhaustless supply of salt for his use. Pre- 
eminently is this salt of the Dead Sea a savor of life 
and of death. 

The salt of the ocean is the world's treasure. With- 
out it the greater portion of the earth's inhabitants 
would perish for lack of what vivifies and preserves 
animal life. Yet because of the salt in the ocean the 
very water, which man and beast must have or perish 
of thirst, is useless to both man and beast. The cry 
in the "Ancient Mariner" is the cry of the human, 
always, on the ocean's surface : 

"Water, water, everywhere, 

And all the boards did shrink : 
Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink." 

Water, which is the gift of God to the thirsty soul, 
mocks the thirsty soul when it brings with it salt, 
which is the representative of life. Salt in water is a 
savor of death unto death, while salt and water are 
also a savor of life unto life. 

While salt as the equivalent of life is a symbol of 
permanency, it becomes, as the equivalent of death, a 
symbol of doom and destruction. Thus the prophet 

1 Tacitus, Hist., v. 6. cited as above. 



136 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

Isaiah, speaking of his salvation as sure and perma- 
nent, says : "Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look 
upon the earth beneath : for the heavens shall vanish 
away [literally, shall be salted] like smoke, and the 
earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that 
dwell therein shall die in like manner [or, like gnats] : 
but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteous- 
ness shall not be abolished." x 

Life is in itself the destroyer of death, as light is the 
destroyer of darkness. Hence that which makes anew 
does away with that which was of old. When, there- 
fore, salt or fire is spoken of as the destroyer of that 
which is not worthy of preservation, it is not to be 
wondered at that this power is possessed by an ele- 
ment that purifies and revivifies through the process 
of destruction. The ground of a destroyed and con- 
demned city is guarded against a continuance of its 
old life of evil by being sown with salt, which is a 
savor from life unto life and from death unto death. 
The old heavens and the old earth which vanish away 
as by fire and salt, 2 are replaced by a new heaven and 
a new earth 3 which shall be enduring as gold tried in 
the fire, and as a covenant of salt forever. 

There is a sense in which that which is devoted to 

1 Isa. 51 : 6. 2 Isa. 34 : 4 ; 2 Peter 3 : 10-12. 

3 Isa. 51:16; 65 : 17 ; 66 : 22 ; 2 Peter 3 : 13. 






BLOOD ATONED FOR BY BLOOD 1 37 

God is thereby forbidden to the use of man. Thus 
land sown with salt may be counted as devoted and 
as destroyed, devoted to God and destroyed for man. 1 
The Hebrew word korban was applied to what had 
thus been dedicated and doomed. 2 

Blood also is used in the twofold sense of life and 
of death, in different connections. Men say, "We 
are bound together by blood," and "We are of one 
blood," and "Blood is thicker than water." They 
say, also, "There is blood between us," and "Spilled 
blood cannot be gathered up," and "Blood is a bar- 
rier." Salt, that stands for blood, may similarly stand 
for life or for death, for peace or for discord. It is an 
old superstition that to put salt on another's plate is 
an evil omen. Hence the couplet : 

"Help me to salt, 
Help me to sorrow !" 

Yet even this portent of ill luck may be canceled by 
a repetition of the act, helping to a second portion of 
salt. 3 The taking of blood that becomes a barrier 
may be followed by the taking of blood as a bond of 
union. Shedding of blood is atoned for by sharing 
of blood. 

1 See Num. 21 : 2, 3. 

2 Mark 7:11. See the Rev. Dr. Jastrow, in The Sunday School Times 
for April 28, 1894; also W. Robertson Smith's Religion of the Semites, 
p. 435 ; also Nowack, Lehrbuch der Hebraeischen Archaologie, II., 267. 

3 Henderson's Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties, p. 120. Thistleton 
Dyer's Domestic Folk- Lore, p. 104 f. 



1 38 THE CO VENA NT OF SALT 

. Even the spilling of salt, which is so dreaded in 
primitive thought, may, it is said, be rendered harm- 
less if the person who was guilty of the mishap will 
carefully gather up the spilled salt with the blade of 
a knife, and throw it over his left shoulder, with an 
appropriate invocation. 1 

It is deemed dangerous to give away salt to a 
stranger; for because salt is as blood and as life, one 
must be careful lest he put his blood and his life in 
the power of an enemy. 2 Salt is essential to the 
preservation of human life ; at the same time, salt is 
the destruction of human life if it be in too great 
quantity or proportion. Thus the seeming contra- 
diction is only in seeming. 

1 Henderson, p. 120 ; Dyer, p. 104 f. ; Napier, p. 139 f. 
2 Henderson, p. 217. 



XV 
MEANS OF A MERGED LIFE 



XV 
MEANS OF A MERGED LIFE 

All life is from the Author and Source of life. Only 
as two persons become partakers of a common life by 
each and both sharing in that which is in itself life, 
can they become one in the all-inclusive Life. Hav- 
ing life from the Source of life, they can merge their 
common possession in each other, and in that com- 
mon Source. Such merging in a common life, with 
an appeal to and by the approval of God, or the gods, 
has been the root-idea of covenanting, in one way or 
another, from time immemorial, among all peoples, 
the world over. 

In primitive thought, and in a sense in scientific 
fact, the blood is the life and the life is in the blood ; 
hence they who share in each other's blood are shar- v 
ers in a merged and common life. Covenanting in this 
way with a solemn appeal to God, or to the gods, has 
been a mode of sacred union from the earliest dawn 
of human history. Two thus covenanting are sup- 
posed to become of one being ; the one is the other, 

141 



142 THE COVENANT OF SALT 

and the two are one. Every form of sacrifice, Jewish, 
Egyptian, Assyrian, or ethnic, is in its primal thought 
either an evidence and a reminder of an existing cove- 
nant between the offerer and the Deity approached, 
or an appeal and an outreaching for a covenant to be 
consummated. 1 

Salt is counted as the equivalent of blood and of 
life, both in primitive thought and, in a sense, in scien- 
tific fact ; therefore salt, like blood, has been deemed 
a nexus of a lasting covenant, as nothing can be 
which is not life or its equivalent. Only as two per- 
sons are sharers of a common life can they be sup- 
posed to have merged their separate identity in that 
dual union. 

And so we find that, in the primitive world's thought, 
shared salt has preciousness and power because of 
what it represents and of what it symbolizes, as well as 
of what it is. Salt stands for and corresponds with, 
and it symbolizes, blood and life. As such it repre- 
sents the supreme gift from the Supreme Giver. 
Because of this significance of salt, when made use 
of as the means of a lasting union, the Covenant of 
Salt, as a form or phase of the Blood Covenant, is a 
covenant fixed, permanent, and unchangeable, endur- 
ing forever. 

1 Compare, for example, Psa. 50 : 5, 16 ; Hos. r : 10 ; Rom. 9 : 26. 



SUPPLEMENT 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A 
COVENANT OF LOVE 



THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A 
COVENANT OF LOVE 

All of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments, 
given from God on two tables, or tablets, of stone, to 
the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. 1 But not all of 
us are accustomed to think of these Ten Command- 
ments as ten separate clauses of a loving covenant 
between God and his chosen people, recorded on 
stone tablets for their permanent preservation. Yet 
these witnessing tablets are repeatedly called in the 
Bible "the tables of the covenant," 2 and "tables of 
testimony," 3 not the tables of the commandments ; 
while the chest or casket which contained them is 
called "the ark of the covenant," 4 and "the ark of 
the testimony," 5 not the ark of the commandments. 

There is obviously a world-wide difference between 

1 Exod. 20 : 1-17 ; Deut. 5 : 1-22. 2 Deut. 9 : 15. 

3 Exod. 32 : 15 ; 34 : 29. 

4 Num. 14 : 44 ; Deut. 10 : 8 ; 31 : 9, 25, 26 ; Josh. 3 : 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 ; 
4 : 7, 9, 18 ; 6 : 6, 8 ; 8 : 33 ; Judg. 20 : 27 ; 1 Sam. 4:3-5; 2 Sam. 15 : 24 ; 
1 Kings 3 : 15 ; 6 : 19 ; 8 : 1, 6 ; 1 Chron. 15 : 25, 26, 28, 29 ; 16 : 6, 37 ; 
17 : 1 ; 22 : 19 ; 28 : 2, 18 ; 2 Chron. 5 : 2, 7 ; Jer. 3 : 16. 

5 Exod. 25 : 22 ; 26 : 33, 34 ; 30 : 6, 26 ; 31 : 7 ; 39 : 35 ; 40 : 3, 5, 21 ; 
Num. 4 : 5 ; 7 : 89 ; Josh. 4 : 16. 

145 



146 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

a loving covenant that binds two parties to each other 
in mutual affection and fidelity, and a series of 
arbitrary commandments enjoined by a sovereign 
upon his subjects ; between a compact of union, hav- 
ing its statement of promises on the one hand and of 
responsibilities on the other, and an instrument that 
asserts the rights of the ruler and defines the duties of 
the ruled. In our estimate of the Decalogue we have 
made too much of the law element, and too little of 
the element of love. As a consequence it has not 
been easy for us to see how it is that God's law is 
love, and that love is the fulfilling of God's law. But 
the Ten Commandments are a simple record of God's 
loving covenant with his people, and they are not the 
arbitrary commandings of God to his subjects. They 
indicate the inevitable limits within which God and 
his people can be in loving union, rather than declare 
the limits of dutiful obedience on the part of those 
who would be God's faithful subjects. A close 
examination of the Decalogue will show that this is 
its nature and scope. 

It must be borne in mind, in our Bible reading, that 
the Bible was originally written by Orientals for 
Orientals, and that it is to be looked at in the light of 
Oriental manners and customs, and Oriental modes of 
speech, in order to its fullest understanding. Hence 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 147 

when we find the term " covenant," or the term 
"commandment," in the Bible, we are to inquire into 
the Oriental meaning of that term, so that we may 
know the sense in which it was employed by the 
Bible writers. 

Now a "covenant" among Orientals is, and always 
has been, a sacred compact binding two parties in 
loving agreement. Oriental covenants are made in 
various forms and by various ceremonies. The most 
sacred of all forms of covenanting in the East is by 
two persons commingling their own blood, by its 
drinking or by its inter-transfusing, in order that they 
may come into a communion of very life. 1 Two per- 
sons who wish to become as one in a loving blood- 
friendship will open each a vein in his own arm, and 
allow the blood to flow into a common vessel, from 
which both parties will drink of the commingled 
blood. Or, again, each person will open a vein in 
one of his hands, and the bleeding hands will be 
clasped together so that the blood from the one shall 
find its way into the veins of the other. Or, yet 
again, the two will share together the substitute blood 
of a sacred animal. Usually, in such a case, a written 
compact is signed by each party and given to the 
other, with the stamp of the writer's blood upon it as 

1 See The Blood Covenant. 



148 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

a part of the ceremony of covenanting ; and this writ- 
ing is carefully encased in a small packet or casket, 
and guarded by its holder as his very life. It is in the 
light of such customs as this that we are to read of 
the sacred covenant entered into between God and 
his Oriental people. 

It was at the foot of Mount Sinai that Moses came 
before the people of Israel with God's proffer to them 
of a covenant, whereby they should bear his name 
and be known as his people. "And he took the 
book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the 
people : and they said, All that the Lord hath spoken 
will we do, and be obedient." 1 Then it was that 
Moses took of substitute blood and divided it into two 
portions, one half to be sprinkled on the altar God- 
ward, and the other half to be sprinkled on the 
people ; and Moses said : " Behold the blood of the 
covenant, which the Lord hath made with you con- 
cerning all these words" — or, as the margin of the 
Revised Version has it, " upon all these conditions." 2 

Moreover, we are told, in the Epistle to the He- 
brews, 3 that Moses sprinkled the blood upon the 
record, or book, of the covenant, as well as upon the 
people. It was after this — after the breach and 
the renewal of the covenant between Israel and God — 

1 Exod. 24 : 7. 2 Exod. 24 : 8. 3 Heb. 9 : 19. 






AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 149 

that the stone tablets on which the covenant itself had 
a permanent record were encased in a casket, or an 
"ark," l which was thenceforward guarded sacredly as 
containing the charter of Israel's nationality, the wit- 
ness, the evidence, the testimony, of the loving cove- 
nant between God and his people. 

But you may ask, Did not the tables of stone bear 
a record of specific commandments, rather than of 
articles of a covenant ? And are not the words there 
recorded specifically called in the Bible the "Ten 
Commandments " ? Look for yourselves, and see. 
It is true that our English Bible speaks of the Ten 
Commandments recorded on these tables of stone ; 
but the word here translated " commandments " is 
more literally to be rendered "words," 2 as indeed it 
is given in the margin of the Revised Version ; and it 
is applicable to any declaration, injunction, or charge, 
made by one to another. It is by no means to be 
understood as simply an arbitrary mandate from an 
absolute sovereign to his subjects. Looking at the 
Ten Commandments as a set of moral laws covering 
man's duties to God and to his fellows, they seem 
strangely defective, when we find among them no 
command to pray to or to praise God, nor any com- 
mand to give sympathy or assistance to man. But 

1 Exod. 40 : 20. 2 Exod. 34 : 28. 



150 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

when we look at them as clauses of a loving covenant, 
indicating the scope and limits of relations within 
which a child of God's duties God-ward and man- 
ward are to be exercised, we find that they are far- 
reaching and all-inclusive. Looking at them as the 
tables of the covenant between God and his people in 
the light of Oriental views of covenanting, we can see 
a great deal more in the words on those tables than 
when we look at them as the tables of the command- 
ments, — in the light of our Western ideas of com- 
mandings. 

A covenant involves the idea of a twofold agree- 
ment between the parties making it Even though 
God himself be one of the parties, he will not refuse 
to be explicit in his words of covenanting. And so 
we find it to be in the record on the tables of the 
covenant which were given to Moses at Mount Sinai. 
We call the opening words of that record the "Preface 
to the Ten Commandments;" but they are more 
properly God's covenanting words with his people. 
" I am Jehovah thy God, which brought thee out of 
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." l 
The very name " Jehovah " includes the idea of a 
covenant-making and a covenant-keeping God. The 
declaration of Jehovah's eternally existing personality 

1 Exod. 20 : 3. 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 151 

as Jehovah is in itself a covenant promise, for all time 
to come, to those who are his covenant people. It is 
as though he were to say : "I, who was and am, and 
am to be, the same yesterday and to-day, yea and 
forever, will be your God unfailingly. As I have 
given you a loving deliverance out of Egyptian 
bondage, so I am ever ready to deliver you from 
every evil that enthralls you." 

Man, when he promises for the future, needs to 
say, " I will do ; " but God can say nothing stronger 
than "I do," or than " I am." Thus the promise of 
promises of Jesus to his disciples as their ever-present, 
all-sustaining Lord, is, " Lo, I am with you alway ; " l 
not " Lo, I will be" but " Lo, I am" And so it is 
that God's covenant promise to Israel, to be their 
loving, guarding, and guiding God for all time to 
come, is in the words : "I am Jehovah thy God, 
which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of 
the house of bondage." 2 And this is the promise of 
"the party of the first part," as we would say in 
modern legal parlance, in this covenant between God 
and his people Israel. 

Then there follow the covenant agreements of 
God's people, as " the party of the second part " in 
this loving compact. As it is God who prescribes or 

1 Matt. 28 : 20. 2 Exod. 20 : 2. 



152 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

defines the terms on which this covenant is to be 
made, the indication of those terms is mainly in the 
form of such prohibitions as will distinguish the people 
of God from other peoples about them, in the bearing 
of that people toward God's personality, toward God's 
institutions, and toward God's representatives. This 
is all that is needed in the fundamental articles of 
covenanting. The details of specific duties may be 
defined in special enactments under the terms of this 
covenant, or they may be inferred from its spirit. 

The first requirement is, that this covenanting God 
shall be recognized as the only God ; that no other 
god shall be conceded a place in God's universe. 
And this requirement is vital to any such covenant. 
A divided heart is no heart at all. He who can see 
any other object of love and devotion comparable 
with the one to whom he gives himself in covenant- 
union, is thereby incapacitated from a covenant-union. 
Therefore it is that this first word of the Ten Words 
of the covenant of God's people with their God is not 
an arbitrary mandate, but is the simple expression of 
a truth which is essential to the very existence of the 
covenant as a covenant of union. 

And this principle is as vitally important now as it 
was in the days of Moses. The human heart is 
always inclined to divide itself when it ought to be 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 53 

undivided. It is reluctant to be wholly and always 
true to God alone. But, now as hitherto, without 
wholeness of heart a covenant of union with God is 
an impossibility. And, indeed, the very idea of other 
gods is an outgrowth of man's sense of an unfitness to 
be in oneness of life with the One God, — in conse- 
quence of which man seeks a lower divinity than 
the supreme God as the immediate object of his 
worship. 

The second requirement in this covenant of union 
is, that no material image or representation of this 
covenanting God shall be made use of as a help to his 
worship by his covenanting people ; that, as a Spirit, 
God shall be worshiped in spirit by his people. Here, 
again, is no arbitrary mandate, but only the recogni- 
tion of a vital truth. Because God is Creator of all, 
no creation of God can be like God. Because God is 
a Spirit, the human mind can best commune with 
him spiritually, without having its conceptions of him 
degraded by any image or representation — which at 
the best must be wholly unworthy of him. 

In this second requirement, as in the first, a danger 
is indicated to which the Israelites were peculiarly 
exposed in their day, and to which all the people of 
God are exposed in any day. In the Assyrian, or 
Chaldean, home of Abraham, there was practically no 



154 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

image worship, but there was a belief in a plurality of 
gods. In the Egyptian home, from which the Israel- 
ites had just come out, images in great variety were 
the objects of worship. As the covenant people of 
God, the Israelites were to refrain from the polytheism 
of their ancestral home in the far East, and from the 
grosser idolatry of their more recent home in the 
West. And so it must be with the people of God at 
all times ; they must worship only God, and they 
must worship God without any help from a material 
representation of the object of their worship. 

As there is still a temptation to give a divided 
heart to God, so there is still a temptation to seek the 
help of some visible representation or symbol of 
God's presence in his worship. The Christian be- 
liever does not bow down to an idol, but many a 
Christian believer thinks that his mind can be helped 
upward in worship by looking at some representation 
of his Saviour's face, or at some symbol of his 
Saviour's passion. But just because God is infinitely 
above all material representations and symbols, so 
God can best be apprehended and discerned spirit- 
ually. Anything coming between man's spirit and 
God the Spirit is a hindrance to worship, and not a 
help to it. Suppose a young man were watching 
from a window for his absent mother's return, with a 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 155 

wish to catch the first glimpse of her approaching 
face. Would he be wise, or foolish, in putting up a 
photograph of his mother on the window-pane before 
him, as a help to bearing her in mind as he looks for 
her coming? As there can be no doubt about the 
answer to that question, so there can be no doubt that 
we can best come into spiritual communion with God 
by closing our eyes to everything that can be seen 
with the natural eye, and opening the eyes of our 
spirit to the sight of God the Spirit. This, again, is 
no arbitrary requirement of God ; it is in the very 
nature of his being and of our own. 

The third requirement of this compact is, that there 
shall be no insincerity on the part of God's covenant 
people in their claiming and bearing his name, as the 
name of their covenanting God. This requirement is 
not generally understood in this light ; but all the 
facts in the case go to show that this is its true light. 
In the Oriental world, and in the primitive world 
everywhere, one's name stands for one's personality ; 
and the right to bear one's name or even to call on 
one by his personal name, is a proof of intimate rela- 
tion, if not of actual union, with him. God was now 
covenanting with this people to be his people, thereby 
authorizing them to bear his name, and to be known 
as his representatives. In the very nature of things, 



156 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

this laid upon them a peculiar obligation to bear his 
name reverently and in all sincerity. 

It is not that God arbitrarily commanded his people 
to have a care in the speaking of his name, as if he 
were jealous of its irreverent mention ; but it is that 
he reminded them that the coming into the privileges 
of his name was the coming into the responsibilities 
of that name. It was as though Mr. Moody were 
taking a little street waif into his home to train the 
boy as his own son, and were formally giving to that 
boy the right to take and bear his name. Naturally 
he might say : " Understand, now, my boy, that, 
wherever you go, they'll say, ' There goes a young 
Moody.' Now, I value my name, and I don't want it 
disgraced. See to it that you take care of that name 
wherever you are." So God said to his people : 
"Thou shalt not take" — shalt not assume, bear, 
carry — " the name of the Lord thy God in vain " — in- 
sincerely, vainly ; "for the Lord will not" — cannot — 
" hold him guiltless that taketh " — claimeth the privi- 
leges of — "his name in vain " — vainly, insincerely. 

This covenant obligation also is on us as it was on 
God's people of old. As Christians we are baptized 
into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost. 1 Wherever we go, we are counted as mem- 

1 Matt. 28 : 19. 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 57 

bers of God's family. His name is on us, and his 
honor is in our keeping. Wherefore, " let every one 
that nameth the name of the Lord" — claimeth it as 
his own name — "depart from unrighteousness;" 1 
and let him never feel that it is a light or a vain thing 
to bear that name before the world. 

Thus we see that the first three of the ten require- 
ments of the loving covenant of God's people with 
their God are simply the requirements to worship 
God as the only God, to worship him in unhindered 
spirituality, and to worship him in all sincerity. These 
three fundamental requirements seem to have been in 
the mind of our Lord Jesus when he said to the 
woman of Samaria at the well of Jacob : " God " — the 
One God — "is a Spirit: and they that worship him 
must worship in spirit and truth." 2 

Coming to the fourth requirement of the loving 
covenant of God and his people, we find it differing in 
form from the preceding three requirements ; differing 
also from the form of all* but one of those which 
follow it. The preceding three are in the negative 
form ; this is in the affirmative form, beginning with 
the injunction, "Remember" (Keep in mind). Of 
course, there is a reason for this. The first three re- 
quirements are in the line of obvious, if not of self- 

1 2 Tim. 2 : 19. 2 John 4 : 24. 



158 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

evident, truths ; the requirement of one day in seven 
for rest and worship is not, however, of obvious im- 
portance. Hence this requirement is specifically 
affirmed as an article of the covenant, while the 
others guard against departures from primal prin- 
ciples of vital moment. 

The " Sabbath" was a recognized institution long 
before the days of Moses. Traces of its strict and 
sacred observance in the ancestral home of Abraham 
are disclosed in the Assyrian records unearthed in 
these later days. And now that the Lord, at Sinai, is 
drawing away his covenant people from the sins and 
errors of their fathers and neighbors, he reminds them 
that there is good in some of the observances of the 
past, which they are not to forsake or forget. " Re- 
member," therefore he says, " the sabbath day to 
keep it holy" — as your fathers in all their polytheism 
had a care to observe it of old. Bear that institution 
in mind, as worth your remembering. ^ 

And here again there is affirmed a principle which 
is for all time and for all people. Although the 
reason for setting apart one day above another for 
rest and worship is not on the surface of things, the 
experiences of mankind, as well as the teachings of 
God's Word, go to show that there is such a reason 
below the surface. In the long run, man can do more 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 59 

work, and do it better, in six days of a week, than he 
can in seven ; and unless a man worships God at 
stated times, he is not likely to worship him at all. 
So it is that God makes it a part of his loving cove- 
nant between himself and his people, that ever and 
always they shall worship him statedly, as well as 
worship him sincerely, spiritually, and solely ; because 
without this stated recognition of the covenant, the 
covenant itself would be forgotten. 

And now we come to the fifth of the ten covenant 
requirements : " Honor thy father and thy mother." 
This also is in the affirmative form, and for a very 
good reason. God is here declaring, as it were, that 
those who are in legitimate authority are so far his 
representatives. He wants it understood that while 
no other gods are in existence, even in a subordinate 
place in the universe, he has his representatives in 
various spheres of human government and rule, and 
they are to be honored accordingly by his covenant 
people. 

We are accustomed to speak of the division of the 
Ten Commandments into two tables, the first com- 
prising four requirements, and the second six ; but it 
will be seen that this fifth requirement belongs with 
the preceding four in the group of those which look 
God-ward. It is as though the one table pointed up- 



l6o THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

ward from ourselves, while the other pointed outward. 
We are to honor those who are over us in the Lord, 
not as our fellows, but as our superiors ; not because 
of what they are as men, but because they are, within 
the scope of their rule, the representatives of our God. 

By Oriental custom the terms " father " and 
"mother" are by no means limited to one's natural 
parents, but are applicable to superiors in years, or in 
wisdom, or in civil or religious station. This truth 
was impressed on my mind by an incident in my 
journey across the desert of Sinai. My companions 
in travel were two young men, neither of them a rela- 
tive of mine, — as my dragoman very well knew. 
When, however, in mid-desert, we met an old Arab 
shaykh, through whose territory we were to pass, my 
dragoman introduced me as the father of these young 
men. "No, they are not my sons" I said to the 
dragoman ; but his answer was : " That's all right. 
Somebody must be father here." And when I found 
that, according to the Arab idea, every party of trav- 
elers must have a leader, and that the leader of a 
party was called its "father," I saw that it would look 
better for me to be called the father of the young 
men, than for one of them to be called my father. 

Traces of this idea are found in the Bible use of the 
term "father." In Genesis, Jabal is said to be "the 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE l6l 

father of such as dwell in tents, and have cattle;" 1 
the man who started the long line of nomad shep- 
herds. Jubal is called " the father of all such as 
handle the harp and pipe ; " 2 the pioneer instrumental 
musician of our race. Joseph in Egypt speaks of 
himself as ' " a father to Pharaoh," 3 in view of the con- 
fidence reposed in him by the ruler of the empire. 
"Be unto me a father and a priest," 4 says Micah to 
the young Levite, in the days of the Judges ; because 
a religious guide is, in the East, counted as in a 
peculiar sense a representative of God. 

It is not merely that the terms " father" and 
"mother" may include others besides human parents, 
but it is that no Oriental would think of limiting 
those terms to that relationship. Hence this fifth re- 
quirement of the covenant of God's people with their 
God, just as it stands, is in substance : Honor those 
who are over you in the Lord, as the representatives 
of the Lord ; for the powers that be are ordained of 
God, 5 and he who fails to honor them lacks in due 
honor to him who has deputed them to speak and to 
act for himself. And herein is affirmed a principle 
which is as important to us to-day as it was to the 
Israelites in the days of Moses. Indeed, it may be 

1 Gen. 4 : 20. 3 Gen. 4 : 21. 8 Gen. 45 : 8. 4 Judg. 17 : io. 

5 Rom. 13 : 1. 



1 62 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

questioned whether any precept of the ten covenant 
requirements has a more specific bearing on the 
peculiar needs of the American people, than this in- 
junction to reverence those who are in authority be- 
cause they are God's representatives in their sphere. 
Anarchy can have no tolerance in the mind of a child 
of God ; but reverence for rightful authority has its 
home there. 

Turning from the first table of the covenant with its 
upward look, to the second table with its outward 
look, we find that each new requirement in its order 
. stands for a great principle which is applicable alike to 
all peoples and to all times, and which has its basis in 
man's loving union with God. The first of this series, 
the sixth of the ten requirements, is : "Thou shalt not 
kill;" or, "Thou shalt do no murder." Here is a 
great deal more than an ordinance forbidding the 
striking down to death of a fellow-man. Here is a 
call of God to guard sacredly the life of every child 
of God, as that which is dear to God. In the Oriental 
world, as in the primitive world generally, blood 
stands for life, and life is supposed to proceed from 
God and to return to God. When, therefore, an 
Oriental is told that he must not take it upon himself 
to shed another's blood, he realizes that that prohibi- 
tion is equivalent to saying that it is not for him to 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 63 

decide when a life that God has given shall be re- 
called to God. 

This idea it is that runs through the whole system 
of what is popularly known as " blood revenge " in the 
East. ''Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall 
his blood be shed : for in the image of God made he 
man," x was the declaration of God as early as the 
days of Noah ; and it is in the line of that declaration 
that any man in the East who sheds another's blood 
must surrender his own blood to the other's family, at 
the present day — as ever since the days of Noah. 
Not personal revenge, but divine equity, is the real 
basis of this system. Not because the life belongs to 
the man, but because it belongs to God, must it be 
guarded sacredly, and be accounted for — if taken 
away. 

It is on this principle that the civil magistrate, as 
the messenger of God, takes the life of one who has 
taken another's life, in these days of the Christian dis- 
pensation. " He beareth not the sword in vain : for 
he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him 
that doeth evil." 2 A child of God must count sacred 
every life which God has given ; and except while 
acting as a specific messenger of God, he must never 
send back a human life to God. 

^en. 9 :6. 2 Rom. 13 : 4. 



1 64 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

The seventh covenanting requirement is a call to 
regard the family institution as an institution of God's 
appointing, and to refrain from aught that tends to its 
injury. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" means a 
great deal more than Refrain from unchastity because 
of its harm to yourself or to your neighbor. It 
means, Guard God's primal institution for man, as an 
institution which God holds dear. At the very begin- 
ning of the race, it was ordained of God that one man 
and one woman — the twain, not the three, or the four, 
but the twain — should be one flesh in loving union. 1 
This institution of God's ordaining is dear to God, and 
it ought to be dear to every child of his ; therefore 
God says to those who would be in loving compact 
with him, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Be- 
cause your and my interests are made one, you must 
not, you cannot, as my loving people, do aught that 
shall prove injurious to the family — to the institution 
which I have established, and which is dear to my 
heart. 

This, again, is not an arbitrary commandment ; nor 
is it one for a single period, or for a single people 
only. It is the enunciation of a principle which is 
vital to the well-being of all peoples at all times. It 
was so from the beginning, and it must be so unto the 

1 Gen. 2 : 24, 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 65 

end. The family is the unit in the State and in the 
Church. It must not be ignored in the realm of 
society, of government, or of religion. He who would 
be true to God must be true to the institution of the 
family. And who shall say that we have no need of 
remembering this truth in our land and day ? 

The eighth requirement of the covenant guards the 
rights of property as within the plan and ordering of 
God. " Thou shalt not steal " is announced as an 
article of the loving compact of God's people with 
their God. Not merely because your fellow-man 
would object to your taking his property from him, 
but because the rights of property are of divine ap- 
pointment, are you to refrain from claiming as your 
own that which now belongs to another. 

This idea of regarding property rights as of God's 
appointment is peculiarly prevalent in the Oriental 
mind. The lines of tribal division in the desert are 
recognized as having divine sanction ; and now, as in 
the days of old, it is hardly less than sacrilege to re- 
move an ancient landmark in the East. Tribes which 
are at enmity will make raids across these border lines 
for purposes of plunder ; but this is in the nature of 
what " civilized" nations call a " military necessity." 
Again, a stranger who enters a tribal domain without 
obtaining consent is treated as a smuggler, and all his 



1 66 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

property is confiscated accordingly. This, however, 
merely shows the primitive origin of the "high tariff " 
principle. Orientals who plunder from their enemies, 
or who collect impost duties from immigrants, do so 
in the belief that God sanctions these habits of the 
ages. 

When one of the Arabs of our party, in crossing the 
desert of Sinai, found he had dropped a bag of meal, 
he went back to look for it, in perfect confidence that 
it would be left untouched by others. On my asking 
him if he had no fear that another Arab had carried it 
off, he replied that no Arab would steal from an Arab. 
Dr. Edward Robinson l saw a black tent hanging on 
a tree, where, as he was told, it had remained a full 
year awaiting its owner's return ; and he says that if 
a loaded camel dies on the desert its owner draws a 
circle in the sand about it, and leaves it without any 
fear that it will be disturbed in his absence. Burck- 
hardt 2 illustrates the estimate put by the Arabs on 
stealing, by the story of an Arab father who bound 
his own son hand and foot, and cast him headlong to 
death from a precipice, because the son had stolen 
from one of his tribal fellows. Life can only be 
taken at the call of God ; but, according to this 

1 Biblical Researches, nth ed., I., 142. 
2 Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, p. 475 f. 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 67 

Oriental view, he who violates the property rights of 
one of God's children forfeits his very life to God. 

The principle underlying this estimate of the sacred- 
ness of property rights, like every other principle 
enunciated in the Decalogue, is not an outgrowth of 
an arbitrary commandment, but it inheres in the very 
nature of God's dealings with the sons of men. What 
hast thou that thou didst not receive by God's con- 
sent ? l What has thy fellow that he did not receive 
by the same permission ? It is God who gives. It is 
for God to take away. 2 No loving child of God will 
refuse to heed the limits which his Father has assigned 
in the distribution of his possessions among the chil- 
dren of his love. That was the way in which the 
Orientals were taught to look at it. That is the way 
in which we ought to view it. Anti-property com- 
munism is rebellion against God. 

Ninth in the list of the covenant requirements 
comes the summons to hold in sacred regard the per- 
sonal reputation, or good name, of every child of 
God. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
neighbor" is a prohibition of slander, or of careless 
speech affecting the good name of one's fellow-man. 
This is not, as many have supposed, a mere injunction 
to truthful speech on all occasions. Lying needs no 

1 1 Cor. 4 : 7. 2 Job 1 : 21. 



1 68 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

specific prohibition in a loving compact between God 
and his people ; although the duty of truthfulness is 
inseparable from the thought of any compact with 
God — who could not be God if he were to approve 
untruthfulness. 1 But a disregard by man of the repu- 
tation of his fellow-man does need to be guarded 
against in such a compact ; therefore its mention has 
a place here. A child's good name is always dear to 
his father. He who loves and honors the father will 
not be heedless of the reputation of the child. God 
is the Father of all. The good name of every one of 
his children is dear to him. He who loves and 
honors God will not be careless of the reputation of 
any one of God's dear children. Therefore it is that, 
in the loving covenant of God with his people, it is 
declared that love for God includes a truthful fidelity 
to the good name of every child of God. 

How the application of this principle comes home 
to us in our social life as God's children ! We are 
jealous of the good name of the members of our own 
families. We are tender of the reputation of those 
whom we know to be very dear to our dearest friends. 
But how careless we are of the good name of those in 
whom we feel no special concern, or of the reputation 
of those who happen to be personally disagreeable to 

1 Num. 23 : 19. 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 69 

us ! We hear and repeat the words spoken to their 
discredit without knowing whether or not those words 
are true. By our unguarded speech or looks we 
help, perhaps, to give a false impression to others 
concerning them. And all the while they are God's 
dear children, and every spiteful or thoughtless blow 
at them is a stroke at him. Is this consistent with 
our claim of loving union with their God and ours ? 

It was in the line of this principle that our Lord 
Jesus gave emphasis to his one new commandment, 
that those who loved him should love one another, as 
being dear to him ; l and, again, that he declared that 
whoever ministered tenderly to one of his disciples 
should be reckoned as ministering to himself. 2 God 
links himself in loving sympathy with all his children, 
and he wants their welfare to be held dear by all who 
hold him dear. 

And now we come to the tenth and last of the re- 
quirements of this covenant. Here we find an in- 
junction that goes deeper than those which precede it 
on the second tablet of the written compact. "Thou 
shalt not covet." Not only, Thou shalt not openly 
disregard human life, or the family institution, or the 
property or the reputation of any one of thy fellows ; 
but, Thou shalt not want to do any of these things. 

1 John 13 : 34. 2 Matt. 25 : 40. 



170 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

Thou shalt recognize thine own lot, and thy posses- 
sions, and the lot and the possessions of others, as 
God's assignment to thee and to them ; and thou 
shalt be contented within the sphere which he has 
deemed best for thee. 

. This requirement in the second table of the com- 
pact corresponds with the third requirement in the 
first table. The one says that the child of God must 
be sincere and unfeigned in his loving devotedness to 
God as his Father ; the other says that the child of 
God must accept in all heartiness his Father's order- 
ing concerning himself, in his relations to all his 
brothers and sisters in the great family of God. 

Here it is that we find the more spiritual teachings 
of the Decalogue concerning man's obligations to his 
fellow-man in the loving service of God, as they are 
pointed out, and emphasized in the words of Jesus, in 
what we call the Sermon on the Mount. 1 Here it is 
that the lesson comes home to us that it is not enough 
for us to refrain from actual murder and adultery and 
theft and false witnessing ; but that it is inconsistent 
with our devotedness to God as our loving Father for 
us to have a hateful thought toward one of his dear 
children ; for us to look longingly in the direction of 
another family assignment than that which is ours in 

1 Matt. 5 : 3 to 7 : 27. 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE \J\ 

the way of God's appointment ; for us to turn a wist- 
ful or an envious thought toward any possession of 
another which we have no right to seek after. And 
all this is not of God's arbitrary commanding, but is 
in the very essence of God's loving covenanting with 
his chosen people. Therefore it is that the Apostle 
urges Christians to keep themselves from "fornica- 
tion, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetous- 
ness, the which is idolatry; " * the indulging in which 
is being untrue to God as one's covenant God. 

And now in the light of these disclosures of the 
nature and meaning of the successive clauses of this 
covenant of God with his Oriental people, let us look 
back upon it as a whole in its spirit and teachings, in 
order that we may see what is covered by it, and 
wherein its applications are for us as well as for God's 
people of old. God must be recognized as God alone. 
No heart can love God as God, unless that heart 
loves God wholly. God must be worshiped spiritu- 
ally ; for spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and 
only as a man is lifted above sight and sense can he 
be in communion with the spiritual and the infinite. 
Union with God must be sincere and unfeigned ; for 
only by a complete and willing surrender of one's 
^ol. 3 :s- 



172 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

self can one's self be merged into a holy and infinite 
Personality. The loving worship of God must have 
its stated times, and hence, of course, its stated places, 
in order to have its fitting hold on the worshiper ; 
and the recognition of this truth in the covenant is 
the authorization of all legitimate seasons and methods 
of worship. God's representatives in the family, in 
the State, and in the Church, are to be honored as 
God's representatives ; and herein is the authorization 
of all right forms of human rule. These are the 
teachings of the first table of the covenant ; and those 
of the second table are like unto them. 

He who loves God must love those who are God's. 
As the Apostle expresses it : " If a man say, I love 
God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar : for he that 
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot 
love God whom he hath not seen. And [therefore] 
this [second] commandment have we from him, that 
he who loveth God love his brother also." ' Every 
child of man is a child of God. Wayward and prodi- 
gal son though he be, he still is one who was made in 
the image of God ; and his Father's heart goes out 
toward him unfailingly in love. Hence he who loves 
the Father must guard with sacredness the life of 
every child of that Father. He must honor the insti- 

1 1 John 4 : 20, 21. 



AS A COVENANT OF LOVE 1 73 

tution of the family, which is the human hope of the 
children of that Father. He must hold dear the 
property possessions and the good name of each and 
every child of that Father. And in his heart there 
must be such love for that Father's children as the 
children of his Father, that he will have no wish to 
do aught that shall harm any one of them in any 
degree. 

Thus it is that the spirit and substance of the en- 
tire covenant compact stand out in those words of our 
Lord which lose their meaning if we look at the Ten 
Commandments as ten arbitrary commandings of 
God. When a certain lawyer came to Jesus with the 
knotty question, " Master, which is the great com- 
mandment in the law? " Jesus said unto him : "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
great and first commandment. And a second like 
unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self. On these two commandments hangeth the 
whole law, and the prophets." 1 And thus it is that 
we are enabled to realize that "love ... is the fulfil- 
ment of the law." 2 

The " Ten Commandments " are the law, the law 
of the covenant of love ; but, be it remembered, they 

1 Matt. 22 : 36-40. 2 Rom. 13 : 10. 



174 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 

are not the " Mosaic law." They were not originated 
by Moses ; nor were they done away with when the 
Mosaic law was fulfilled and abrogated in Christ 
They are the law of the promptings of love ; an 
orderly statement of the principles which rule in a 
heart which is devoted to God. Their origin is in the 
nature of God ; and their continuance must be co- 
existent with the needs of the children of God. With 
all our shortcomings in love, and with all our failures 
in fidelity to our covenant-union with God in Christ 
Jesus, just so far as we are in oneness with God by 
faith shall we be true to the principles of this covenant- 
compact of God with his people. " God is love ; and 
he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God 
abideth in him." 1 "And hereby know we that we 
know him, if we keep his commandments." 2 

1 1 John 4 : 16. 2 1 John 2 : 3. 



INDEXES 



OTHER BOOKS BY DR. TRUMBULL 



War Memories of an Army Chaplain 

With 14- full-page Illustrations 
Crown 8vo. $2.00 

"This is incomparably the best chaplain's story which the great 
war has produced. "—Boston Journal. 

"Mr Trumbull gives us no story, merely single incidents, and in 
them we find the tenderness and reverence and bravery and indomi- 
tabte spirit of the American soldier. His book is throughout a eulogy 
of the American private soldier; the man upon whose patience and 
fidelity, obedience to superiors, and heroism the success of our arms 
must eventually depend."— New York Times. 

-Chaplain Trumbull has given us an interesting volume, which is 
well worth reading, for its impressions have the stamp of truth, and 
he tells his story well."— Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 

"It is safe to say that no chaplain in the Civil War was more 
widely known or did more effective service than the Rev H^Clay 
Trumbull Add to this qualification the fact that Mr. Trum- 

bull is a man of" hearty sympathy, wide knowledge of human nature 
and genial humor, and it will be concluded that this volume, called 
- War Memories of an Army Chaplain,' is well worth reading Em- 
phatically it is so, and particularly at this time, when the subject of 
soldier life and the treatment of soldiers s so near to us. The book 
abounds in significant and entertaining incidents, and is thoroughly 
enjoyable from cover to cover."— The Outlook. 

« Mr. Trumbull has given us a book upon the Civil War which is 
in some respects unique. ... Mr. Trumbull's chapters on Re- 
HgiouT Series in the Field, on Chapels, on Sermons, on Pastoral 
Work, are full of interesting matter. "-New York Evening Post. 

« This is an interesting and valuable work not primarily Jistomd 
in aim yet casting upon the history of the Civil War a good deal of 
mnortant lieht • This personal record is as entertaining as 

S3 XI ; parts of it are thrilling "-TV,, Historical Review. 

"A volume packed full of interesting reminiscences anecdotes, 
and relations that bring back to us the war period fronva fresh stand 
point Perhaps nobody knows as much about real army life as the 
regimental chaplain. "-Review of Reviews. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 
, 53 _i 57 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 



Other Books by 
Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 
^ ^ ¥ 

The Blood Covenant 

A Primitive Rite and its Bearings on Scripture 

8vo. $2.50 

"The facts are indisputable, and they tell their own story. Nor 
can we refrain from commending the volume as a most striking and 
valuable contribution to the religious thought of the world. It is 
emphatically one of the few books that no religious thinker can afford 
to be without." — President W. R. Harper, in the Old Testament 
Student. 

" We thank the author for this fruit of vast labor and persevering 
research. It is worthy of the study of all Students of religion." — Rev. 
Charles A. Briggs, D.D. 

' ' It seems to us to throw a true and important light upon the sacra- 
ment of the Holy Communion, and to rescue it alike from Roman 
perversion and Zwinglian degradation. Throughout we have been 
impressed by its reserve of power, its care not to press unduly any 
analogy. It seems to us a model of what biblical study should be." 
■ — The Churchman. 

^ ^ ¥ 

The Threshold Covenant 

Or, The Beginning of Religious Rites 
8vo. $2.50 

" It is brimful of accurate knowledge and new points of view, and 
is written so charmingly that a child could understand and follow." — 
A. H. Sayce, Professor of Comparative Philology at Oxford. 

" Un livre ou s'allient a une si admirable familiarite avec les civili- 
sations de Pantiquite tant de sagacite exegetique et de puissance de 
synthese et d'invention." — Revue de V Histoire des Religions, Paris. 

" I am delighted to have been able to make early acquaintance with 
a book so full of facts which really illuminate the dark places of primi- 
tive times. That the explanation of the Hebrew Scriptures profits 
much by it is clear." — Professor Dr. T. K. Cheyne, Oxford. 



TOPICAL INDEX 



Aaron, God's covenant with, 17. 

Ababde women, reference to, 99. 

" Abusers of the salt," no. 

Added traces of the rite, 123-130. 

"Agreement" used interchangeably 
with " covenant," 5. 

Alexis, Grand Duke, reference to, 125. 

" AH Baba and the Forty Thieves," 
reference to, 254. 

Altar and table as synonymous, 85. 

" Ancient Mariner," reference to, 135. 

Animal food supplies lack of salt, 38. 

Antony and Cleopatra, reference to, 55. 

Arabia, Bed'ween of, reference to, no. 

" Arabian Nights," reference to, 64. 

Arabs : regard for salt covenant among, 
29 ; not accustomed to put salt on 
table, 29 f. ; rite of bread and salt 
among, 31 ; John Macgregor taken 
prisoner by, 32 f. ; swearing by salt 
of, 54 ; milk sometimes accepted as 
substitute for salt by, 62 ; honesty 
of, in f., 166. 

Archeology : its value compared with 
philology, 4. 

Ark of the covenant, reference to, 145. 

Armenians, supply of salt cut off, 43. 

" Arrangement," used interchangeably 
with " covenant," 5. 

Arvieux : cited, 34. 

Asiatic cholera promoted by lack of 
salt, 46. 

Asiatic Quarterly Review, reference 
to, 46. 

Assyrian roots, gain of looking among, 4. 
Assyrian : word for " salt," 76 ; words 
translated " covenant," 6 f. 

" Attic salt," synonym of life in con- 
versation, 68. 

Babe : anoint with blood, 59 ; more life 
to a, 59. 

Bancroft, H. H. : cited, 57,95. 

Band, symbol and pledge of union, 7. 

Barley-meal cakes employed in sacri- 
fice, 94. 

Bartholow, Dr. : cited, 41. 

Battas, in Sumatra, form of oath of, 123. 

Bed'ween, conventions 'or covenants 
of, 30 f. 



Bey, Durzee, reference to, 24. 
Bheels, in India, reference to, 60. 
Bible : references to the rite in, 17; car- 
ried over threshold of new house, 76, 
106 ; estimate of treachery in, 113. 
Bingham's "Antiquities:" cited, 89. 
Bird Bishop, Isabella : cited, 47, 100. 
Birth of child, salt at, 61. 
Blackwood's Magazine, reference to, 

127. 
" Blood Covenant ": reference to, 6, 7, 8, 
9, 41, 45, 48, 53, 54, 59, 60, 62, 67, 79, 
85, 86, 117, 118, 119, 120, 147. 
Blood : fresh, drunk by people of Masai, 
37 ; salt representing, 37-50 ; drained 
from animals slaughtered by Jews, 
39 ; transfusion of, 41 ; use of, as 
food, 41 ; red corpuscles of, 42 f. ; 
saline ingredients in, 42 f. ; anoint- 
ing a new-born babe with, 59 ; Kaffir 
new chief washed in, 60; repre- 
sented by wine, 117 ; atoned for by 
blood, 137 ; sprinkled by Moses, 
148 ; shedding man's, 162 f. 

" Blood-licker " in Mecca. 48. 

" Blood revenge " in the East, 163. 

Blunt, on Book of Common Prayer : 
cited, 80. 

Bock, Carl : cited, 61. 

" Boiling water, ordeal of," 101. 

Booddhists in China, customs among, 
92. 

Bracelet as symbol and pledge of 
union, 7. 

Brahmanas, reference to. 90 f. 

Bread : salt as an accompaniment of, 14 ; 
and salt, 23-34 : significance of, 
79, 80 ; and flesh, 119. 

Bridal couple, sprinkled with salt, 
128 f. 

Browning, Mrs., quotation from, 55. 

Buchanan, Dr., reference to, 41. 

Bunge, Professor : cited, 38, 39, 123. 

Burckhardt : cited, 24, 99 f., 100, 166. 

Burder : cited, 31, no, 112. 

Burning Lamps, Feast of, 92 f. 

Burning of salt, 99 f. 

Burton : cited, 24 ; quotation from, 26. 

Bush's illustrations, reference to, 109. 

Buxtorf : cited, 87 f. 

177 



i 7 8 



TOPICAL INDEX 



Cadamosto, Aloisio, reference to, 69. 

Cannibals, bathing body of chief in salt 
after death, 61. 

Catacazy, Madame de, reference to, 
125. 

Ceres, reference to, 23. 

Cattle, salt as meaning, 91. 

Characteristics of a covenant, 3-10. 

Chemist's use of term " salt," 39. 

China : blood substitute for salt in, 
38 ; depriving a person of salt a 
mode of punishment in, 42 ; cus- 
toms among Booddhists in, 92. 

Church, salt in dedication of a, 90. 

Cicero, reference to, 68. 

Circumcision as token of a covenant, 8. 

Clapperton : cited, 24. 

" College salting," 128. 

Collitz, Professor Hermann, reference 
to, 50, 74. 

" Compact," used interchangeably with 
"covenant." 5. 

" Conventions," Bed'ween, 30 f. 

Corpse, salt on a, in Scotland, 103. 

Cosmas, reference to, 69. 

Covenant : meaning of the word, 3 f. ; 
characteristics of a, 3-10; etymology 
of, 5; words used interchangeably 
with, 5 ; marriage a, 7 ; circum- 
cision as token of, 8 : various kind 
of, 9, 13; Bible references to, 17s. 

Covenanting, exchange of tokens aDd 
symbols in, 8. 

Cross, sign of the, reference to, 89. 

Curative powers of salt, 43 f. 

Customs preceding words, 9. 

Dacier, reference to, 70, 88. 

Daraon, burning of salt among people 

of, 99. 
Darius, King, directing supply from 

royal treasury, 20. 
David, God's covenant with, 17 f. 
Da Vinci's painting, reference to, 113. 
Dead body, salt on breast of, 104. 
Dead Sea, reference to, 58, 134. 
Death : from salts-hunger , 42 ; salt used 

at, 61 ; or life, 133-138. 
Dedication of a church, 90. 
Definition, not easily reached, 5. 
Delitzsch, Friedrich : cited, 7. 
Denham : cited, 24. 
Dhar, used in treaty of peace, 123. 
Diab, Joseph, reference to, 28. 
Discovery of salt as article of diet, 41. 
Disputes settled by salt and water, 

124. 
Divination, salt in, 99-106. 
Division of Ten Commandments, 159 f. 
Doolittle : cited, 100. 
Doughty : cited, 24. 
Du Tott, Baron, quotation from, 27, 28. 
Dyer, Thistleton : quotation from, 104 ; 

cited, 113, 137, 138. 



Eassie, W. : cited, 62. 

Ebionites, salt and bread employed 
by, 5°- 

Edwards's " History of. West Indies," 
quotation from, 60. 

Egypt : salt forbidden to priests in an- 
cient, 55 ; Feast of Burning Lamps 
in, 92 f. ; burning salt in, 99 ; Mu- 
hammadan Arabs in, 100. 

Egyptian : use ot salt in sacrifice, 93 ; 
idea of wine and blood, 118; col- 
lection of taxes, 130. 

Egyptians, table an altar among, 85. 

El Hejaz, Bed'ween of, reference to, no. 

Elijah, reference to, 58. 

Elisha, reference to, 57. 

Elizabeth, Queen, reference to, 126. 

Elkesaites, bread and salt employed 
by, 50. 

Ellis's " History of Madagascar : " 
cited, 8. 

England, burning salt in, 101. 

Esquimaux, value of blood among, 39. 

Etruscan : symbolism, 93 ; customs, salt 
in, 105. 

Etymology of "covenant," 5. 

Eucharist, salt in the, 89. 

" Evil eye : " reference to, 100 f. ; treat- 
ment received by James Napier for, 
101 f. 

Evil spirits, exorcising, 99. 

Exactness of definition not to be 
reached, 5. 

Exchange of tokens and symbols as a 
means of covenanting, 8. 

Exorcism, salt in, 99-106. 

Faithlessness to salt, 109-114. 

" Father," Oriental meaning of, 160. 

Feast of Burning Lamps, 92 f. 

Fidelity to salt, 130. 

Finn, Mrs., quotation from, 32. 

" Fire : salted with," 65 ; salt leaping 

up in, 95 ; salt thrown into, 100. 
Fish, salt in Dead Sea in lieu of, 58. 
Flesh and bread, 119. 
Flies, dead, life brought to, by salt, 63. 
Flood, use of blood as food forbidden 

after the, 41. 
Floor, salt sprinkled upon, 100. 
Florus, reference to, 55. 
Food : salt indispensable in, 14 ; use of 

blood as, 41. 
Ford, George A. : cited, 101. 
Founder of Saffaride dynasty, 27. 
Fourmeaux, L. : cited, 40. 
Frazer : quotation from, no ; cited, 

118 f. 
" Freshman, salting a," 128. 
"Friendship the Master- Passion," 

reference to, 9. 
Funeral, salt scattered at threshold after, 

100. 
Furness, W. H., 3d, reference to, 124. 



TOPICAL INDEX 



W9 



Germans, waging war for saline 
streams, 59. 

German Jews, customs among, 86. 

Gesenius : cited, 7, 109. 

Ghoorka salt, eating, no. 

Ginger root, salt and, given as wedding- 
cake, 124. 

God's covenant with his people, 150 f. 

Gold, salt in exchange for, 69. 

Greek Church, salt deemed essential in 
Eucharist by, 89. 

Greek words translated " covenant," 7. 

Griffis, William Elliot : cited, 47, 100. 

Grimm, reference to, 74. 

Gumpel, C. Godfrey : cited, 45. 

Gypsies, Hungarian customs among,i29. 

Hall, Bishop, reference to, 127. 

Hamelin, M. : cited, 34. 

Hamlin; Dr. : cited, 24. 

Harmer : cited, 24. 

Harper's Latin Dictionary, reference to, 

94, 96. 
Hospitality, salt symbol of, 126. 
Hebrew roots, gain of looking among, 4. 
Hebrew words translated " covenant," 

6f. 
Hebrews, forbidden to eat "with the 

blood," 62. 
Hehn, Victor : reference to, 69 ; quota- 
tion from, 70. 
Hemorrhage, salt administered in, 40. 
Henderson : cited, 103, 104, 137, 138. 
Henniker, Sir Frederick, reference to, 49. 
Herodotus: reference to, 92 ; cited, 119. 
Hilprecht, Dr. Herman V. : cited, 76. 
" Holy water : " salt essential element 
of, 90 ; and salt mingled in food and 
drink, 101. 
Homer : cited, 53, 94. 
" Honey, milk and," symbol of blood 

and flesh, 80. 
Howell, W. H. : cited, 41, 42. 
Hungarian gypsies, customs among, 

129. 
Hungary, wedding customs in, 128. 

Iago, reference to, 55. 
Ideas precede words, 3. 
Importance of salt in covenant, 32. 
Infant, salt put into mouth of, 90. 
Inspiration by wine, 118. 
Intoxication by wine, 118. 

Jabal, reference to, 160. 
Japheth, reference to, 41. 
Jastrow, Rev. Dr. Marcus : cited, 57, 

86, 112, 137. 
Jesus : references of, to salt, 64 f. ; new 

commandment of, 169. 
Jews : careful to drain blood from 

slaughtered animals, 39 ; observing 

covenant of salt at table, 84 ; table 

customs among, 87. 



Josephus : cited, 83. 

Jubal, reference to, 161. 

Judas Iscariot, reference to, 113. 

" Kadlsh-baknea," reference to, 58. 

Kaffir chief, washed in blood upon as- 
suming authority, 60. 

Kama, reference to, 34. 

Kauravas, reference to, 34. 

Kluge : cited, 74. 

Kohler, Dr. K. : cited, 88. 

Kookies of India, treaty of peace 
among, 123. 

Koordistan, salt lake in region of, 59. 

Krishna, reference to, 34. 

Kuhn : cited, 74. 

Laiss-Safar, worker in brass and 
copper, 26. 

Lane : cited, 24, 64, 100. 

Lange, reference to, 65. 

Layard : cited, 26. 

Lea, Henry C. : cited, 101, 124. 

" League," used interchangeably with 
" covenant," 5. 

Lebanon region, blood covenant in, 48. 

Leland, quotation from, 93. 

Leprosy, prominence of salt as cure 
»or, 45. 

Life : dependent on salt, 42 ; salt repre- 
senting, 53-70; seasoned with, 67; 
and light, 73-76 ; savor of, 133-138. 

Light, life and, 73-76. 

Livingstone, Dr. David : cited, 37 f., 38. 

London Court Journal, reference to, 125. 

London Quarterly Review, reference 
,to, 43- 

Lot's wife turned to pillar of salt, tB^* / / 

Lying, reference to, 167 f. 

Macgregor, John, experiences with 

Arabs, 32 f., 33. 
Macrae, quotation from, 126. 
Macrobius : cited, 49. 
Madagascar, covenant of salt in, 34. 
Mahabharata, quoted and cited, 33 f. 
Man offered in sacrifice, 91. 
Marie, Princess, reference to, 125. 
Marriage : a covenant, 7 ; salt and 

bread placed under threshold at, 

106. 
Martene : cited, 101. 
" Martyrdom of an Empress," 129. 
Masai people, reference to, 37. 
Meal, salt of the covenant not to be 

lacking from the, 18. 
Meaning of the word " covenant," 3 f. 
Means of a merged life, 141, 142. 
Meat, eating of, as a pledge, 24. 
Mecca, " blood-lickers " in, reference 

to, 48. 
Mediterranean Sea, water not to be 

taken from, 70. 
Merged life, means of, 141, 142. 



i8o 



TOPICAL INDEX 



Merrill, Selah : cited, 24. 

" Merry Wives of Windsor," reference 
to, 55- 

Message-bearer, salt in hand of, 126. 

Meyer's commentary, reference to, 65. 

Milk : substitute for salt, 62 ; used in- 
stead of blood, 62. 

" Milk and honey" standing for blood 
and flesh, 80. 

" Milk brothers," reference to, 62. 

Money, salt as, 69. 

Morier, James, reference to, 54. 

Morris's " China : " cited, 92. 

Morton, Dr. Thomas G. : cited, 41. 

Mountains of salt, 70. 

Miiller, F. Max, reference to, 91 f. 

Moody, D. L., reference to, 156. 

Moses, reference to, 148, 158. 

"Mother," Oriental meaning of term, 
160. 

Mount Sinai, Moses at, 148. 

Name signifying personality, 155 f. 

Naming child, ceremony of, 124. 

Napier, James : cited, 101 f., 104, 138. 

Neptune, reference to, 23. 

Nicoll, reference to, 65. 

Niebuhr : cited, 24. 

Noah : use of blood as food forbidden 

to, 41 ; reference to, 163. 
Norwach : cited, 7, 14, 137. 

Oath : Oriental form of, 54 ; different 
forms of, 123. 

" Obligation," used interchangeably 
with " covenant," 5. 

Old Testament, word " covenant " 
in, 18. 

Oriental : form of oath, 54 ; meaning of 
terms " father " and " mother," 
160; summit of treachery, in. 

Orientals, Bible written by, 146. 

Othello, reference to, 55. 

Oxford University, giving salt to stu- 
dents in, 127. 

Page, Master, reference to, 54. 
Pasha, Arabi, reference to, 130. 
Pasha, Moldovanji, reference to, 28. 
Paul, reference to, 67. 
Perley, quotation from, 125. 
Perpetuity, salt as symbol of, 84. 
Perspiration, salt shown in, 40. 
Philinus, reference to, 56. 
Philology, archeology sometimes more 

valuable than, 4. 
Pierrotti : cited, 24. 
Plato, reference to, 53. 
Pledge, eating meat as a, 24. 
Pliny : cited, 45, 68, 70, 73, 94, 119. 
Plutarch : cited, 23, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 

119. 
Poison of rattlesnake, 43. 
Polo, Marco : cited, 69. 



Preface to Ten Commandments, 150. 

Price's "Mohammedan History:" 
cited, 27, 42. 

Priests, salt forbidden to, 55. 

Primitive covenanting, 6. 

" Promise," used interchangeably with 
"covenant," 5. 

Pythagoras: reference to, 70; quota- 
tion from, 88. 

Quain's " Dictionary of Medicine : " 
cited, 40, 62. 

Ralston's "Songs of Russian Peo- 
ple : " cited, 106. 

Raphel, Don : reference to, 30 ; quota- 
tion from, 31 ; cited, 111 f. 

Rattlesnake, poison of, 43. 

Rawlinson's "Ancient Egypt," quota- 
tion from, 93. 

Resuscitating drowned persons by salt, 
63- 

Richardson's English Dictionary, ref- 
erence to, 96. 

Ring as symbol and pledge of union, 7. 

Robbery attempted by Yakoob, 26 f. 

Robinson, Dr. Edward : cited, 166. 

Rodd's "Customs :" cited, 101. 

Rosenmuller: cited, 30; reference to, 
54- 

Russell's " Natural History of Aleppo," 
quotation from, 24. 

" Sabbath," a recognized institution 

before Moses, T58. 
Sacrifice on threshold, 47. 
Sacrifices, salt in, 83-96. 
" Sacrificial essence, the," 91. 
Saffaride dynasty, founder of, 27. 
Saffaride Kaleefs, story of the origin of 

the dynasty of, 26. 
St. Augustine : cited, 89. 
St. Peter, fresh water changed to salt 

.. h y> 59- 

Sai's, annual festival at, 92. 

Salary, derivation of word, 68. 

Saline injections, 40. 

Salt : as preservative, 14 ; indispensa- 
ble in food, 14 ; spoken of as an 
accompaniment of" bread, 14 ; a 
vital element, -18 ; covenant of, per- 
petual and unalterable, 18 ; of the 
covenant not to be lacking, 18 ; in 
many lands the possession of gov- 
ernment, 19 ; bread and, 23-34 ; 
nothing eatable without, 23 ; on a 
common table, 29 f. ; importance of, 
to a covenant, 32 ; representing 
blood, 37-50 ; and salts, 39 ; dis- 
covery of as article of diet, 41 ; as 
antidote for snake-bite, 43 ; as 
saline ingredient of blood,\43 ; cura- 
tive powers of, 43 f. ; supply of, cut 
off from Armenians, 43 ; strewn oft 



TOPICAL INDEX 



IS j 



threshold, 47 ; representing life, 
53-7° J and sun, 73-76 ; in sacrifices, 
83-96 ; in the Eucharist, 89 ; as 
sacrificial essence, 91 ; leaping up 
in fire, 95 ; in divination, 99-106 ; 
in exorcism, 99-106 ; not to be car- 
ried out of house after dark, 101 ; 
on a corpse in Scotland, 103 ; car- 
ried across threshold upon entering 
new house, 106; faithlessness *to, 
109-114; and ginger root given as 
wedding-cake, 124 ; water mocking 
thirst, 135. 
Salt-cellar as point of division on family 

table, 126. 
Salt-making, ordinary process of, 75. 
Salted cake, essential in sacrificial offer- 
ing, 94. 
Salted water, drinking of, as a cove- 
nant, 48. 
" Salted with fire," 65. 

"Salting a freshman," 128. 

Salts, salt and, 39. 

Salts-hunger, death from, 42. 

Samaria, woman of, reference to, 157. 

Samoyedes dipping flesh in blood before 
eating it, 38. 

Sanskrit roots, gain of looking among, 4. 

Savor of death, 133-138. 

Savor of life, 133-138. 

Sayce, Professor A. H., reference to, 74. 

Schrader, O.: cited, 74. 

Schultz, Stephen : cited, 28^29 f., 30. 

Scipio, reference to, 68. 

Scotland, salt on a corpse in, 103. 

Scott, Sir Walter, quotation from, 127. 

Seal killing by Esquimaux, 39. 

Seasoned : with life, 67; with salt, 67. 

Second requirement of God's covenant, 
153- 

Sentiment valuable in research, 5. 

Septuagint, The, reference to, 33, 84. 

Settling dispute by salt and water, 124. 

Shallow, Justice, reference to, 54. 

Shewbread, salt on table of, 84. 

Shooter's " Kafirs :" cited, 60. 

Sign of the cross, reference to, 89. 

Significance of bread, 70, 80. 

"Sin-eaters," reference to, 105. 

" Sitting below the salt," 126. 

Sixth requirement of God's covenant 
162. 

Skeat : cited, 74. 

Smith, George Adam, quotation from 
i34- 

Smith, W. Robertson : cited, 14, 24, 48 
59, 62, 137. 

Snake-bite, salt as antidote for, 43. 

Sodom destroyed because of faithless 
ness to salt, 112. 

" Son " and " sun " from same root, 73 

Spencer, Herbert : cited, 123, 126. 

Spilling of salt, 138. 

Stanley, Henry M., reference to, 46 f. 



Stealing, Arab estimate of. 166. 

Stevens, Dr. W.: cited, 43. 

Stewart's "Manual of Physiology:" 

reference to, 42; quotation from, 

123. 
Strassburg University, reference to, 128. 
Strickland, Agnes : cited 126. 
Student, in Journal of Asiatic Society. 

giving salt to, 127. 
" Studies in Oriental Social Life," 14. 21 

24,58. J 

Substitute together with reality, 1 17-120 
Substituting salt for blood, 37. 
Sun, salt and, 73-76. 
Supply of salt cut off from Armenians, 

43- 
Survey of Western Palestine, reference 

to, 32. 
Swearing by salt, 54. 
Sword, salt on blade of, 49. 
Syrophoenician woman, reference to 



Table : of shewbread, salt on, 84 : an 

altar, 85 ; customs among Jews, 87. 
Tacitus : cited, 135. 
Tamerlane, Mongol -Tartar chieftain 

reference to, 109. 
Tatar tradition of salt, 41. 
Taxation in Egypt, 130. 
Tears, salt shown in, 40. 
Ten Commandments, division of, 159 f. 
Thirst, salt water mocking, 135. 
Thomson, W. M. : cited, 24; quotation 

from, 37. 
"Three," value as sacred number. 103. 
Threshold: pouring blood on, 47 ; Bible 

carried across, in new house, 76 : 

salt and candle carried across, 76 ; 

salt scattered at, 100 ; salt and Bible 

carried across, in new house, 106 ; 

salt and bread under, 106. 
" Threshold Covenant," reference to, 6 

47, 106, 117, 128, 130. 
Torture : depriving of salt as a means 

of, 42 ; treachery, Oriental summit 

of, in ; Bible summit of, 113. 
" Treaty," used interchangeably with 

" covenant," 5. 
Truce between enemies, sharing water 

as, 23 f. 
Twain made one, 7. 

Van Lennep : cited, 61. 
Various kinds of covenant, 9. 
Vegetable : diet used by those who take 
salt, 38 ; life, salt destructive of, 133. 
Virgil, reference to, 94. 
Volney : cited, 31. 

Warburton : cited, 24. 

Water : sharing of, 23 ; fountain of, 

cured, 58 ; not to be dipped from 

Mediterranean Sea, 70. 



182 



TOPICAL INDEX 



Wellhausen : cited, 95. 

Wetzstein : cited, 24. 

Wheeler's "History of India:" cited, 

34- 

Wilkinson's " Ancient Egypt : " cited, 

93- 
Wine : representing blood, 117 ; and 

salt, 119. 
Wit, salt equivalent of, 67. 
Woman of Samaria, reference to, 157. 



Words : ideas precede, 3 ; limitations 
and imperfectness of, 3 ; customs 
precede, 9. 

Yakoob, a robber chieftain, 26. 
"Youth, salt of." 54. 
Yudhishthira, reference to, 34. 

Zerubbabel, rebuilding of the temple 
by, 19. 



SCRIPTURAL INDEX 



GENESIS. 



NUMBERS. 



TEXT 

2 : 24 . 
4 : 20, 21 
9:4.. 
9:6 . . 
17 : 1-14 

17 : 14 . 

18 : 1-8 . 

19 : 24, 25 
24 : 12-14 

31 : 54 • 
45 ■• 8 . . 
49 : 11 . 



PAGE 
164 



EXODUS. 



»» 17 

23, 24 

5 • • 



... 80 

... 66 

... 80 

20 : 1-17 145 

20 : 2 150, 151 

23 : 19 88 

23 : 19 ; 34 : 26 ... 62 

24 : 7, 8 . 148 

25 : 22 145 

26 : 33, 34 143 

29 : 40 119 

30 : 6, 26 145 

30 : 34, 35 84 

3i : 7 J 45 

32 : 15 i45 

33 : 3 80 

34 : 26 88 

34 : 28 149 

34 : 29 i45 

39 : 35 J 45 

40 : 3, 5, 21 145 

40 : 20 149 



LEVITICUS. 



2 :i3 . 

2 : 13 . 

7 : "- x 4 

10 : 2 . . 

13 : 52-57 
17 : 11 . 

19 : 9, 10 

20 : 24 . 
23 : 12, 13 
23 : 15-20 



"9 

1 rro 



4:5. • • 

7:89 . . 

13 : 27 . . 

14 : 8 . . . 

14 : 44 • • 

15 : 5, 10 . 

16 : 13, 14 . 
18 : 19 . . 
21 : 2, 3 . . 
23 : 19 . . 
28 : 14 . . 



DEUTERONOMY 



5 = 1- 
6:3 



11:9 . . 

12 : 23 . 
14 : 21 . 
14 : 21 . 
17 : 2-7 . 

23 : 3, 4 • 

24 : 19-21 

26 : 9. 15 

27 : 3 • • 
29 : 23 . 
31 : 9' 2 5> 
31 : 20 . 



JOSHUA. 

3 : 3, 6, 8, 11, i4 ; 

4 : 7, 9, 18 
4 : 16 . 
5:6 . . 

6 : 6, 8 . 

7 = ***5 
8:33 • 



JUDGES. 
20-23 .... 
45 



27 



3-5 
10, 



145 


'5 


145 




80 




80 


3 


Mb 


6 


119 


R 


80 


18 


17 




137 




t68 








ny 


18 


i4S 




80 


l b 
16 



2 SAMUEL. 

TEXT PACK 

: 24 145 

1 KINGS. 

: *5 MS 

:i 9 MS 

: 1 > 6 M5 

: 4 24 



2 KINGS. 



: 19-22 
: 11, 12 



58 

"4 



SAMUEL. 



145 
145 



1 CHRONICLES. 

: 25, 26, 28, 29 . . 145 

:6, 37 145 

: 1 i45 

: 19 >45 

:2, 18 145 

2 CHRONICLES. 



2. 7 

5 • 



EZRA. 



: 21, 22 . 
: 22 . . 



JOB. 



22 : 7 



PSALMS. 



41 : 9 • • • 
50 : 5, 16 . 
55 : 19-21 • 
107 : 33, 34 



ECCLESIASTES. 
39 : 26 



83 



167 
24 



142 
"4 
134 



ISAIAH. 



24 : 5. 6 
34 : 4 • 



114 
136 



183 



1 84 



SCRIPTURAL INDEX 



TEXT PAGE I 

51 : 6 136 

51 : 16 136 

65 : 11 85 

65 : 17 136 

66 : 22 136 

JEREMIAH. 

3 : 16 145 

11 : 5 8o 

11 : 9-11 114 

17 : 6 134 

32 ; 22 80 

34 : I 7" 2 ° JI 4 

EZEKIEL. 

16 : 4 61 

20 : 6, 15 20 

41 : 22 85 

43 : 21-24 83 

47 : 11 134 

HOSEA. 

1 : 10 142 

6:4-7 "4 

8:1.. "4 

ZEPHANIAH. 

2:9 134 

MALACHI. 

1 : 6, 7 85 

3 = 2, 3 

1 MACCABEES. 

6 : 34 "7 



MATTHEW. 

TEXT PAGE 

3 : 12 66 

5 : 3 to 7 : 27 . . . . 170 

5 : 13 6 5 

5 : 13. 14 75 

7 : 19 66 

10 : 8 75 

10 : 42 24 

15 : 27 88 

22 : 36-40 173 

25 : 40 169 

26 : 26-28 119 

28 : 19 156 

28 : 20 151 

MARK. 

7 : 7- 11 ...... 137 

9 = 4i 24 

9 : 49 65, 83 

9 : 50 65 

14 : 22-24 JI 9 

LUKE. 

3 : T 7 66 

14 : 34 65 

22 : 19, 20 119 

JOHN. 

x : 4 •••-•••• • 76 

4:9 24 

4 : 24 157 

13 : 18 in 

13 : 34 l6 9 

15 : 6 66 

ROMANS. 

1 : 31 ....... 114 

9 : 26 142 



TEXT 

12 : i 67 

13:1 161 

x 3 : 4 163 

*3 : 10 173 

1 CORINTHIANS. 

3 : 13-15 66 

4 : 7 167 

11 : 23-25 ny 

2 CORINTHIANS. 

2 : 16 ....... 133 

12 : 14 6 7 

COLOSSIANS. 

3 : 5 171 

4:6 67 

2 TIMOTHY. 

2 : 19 157 

HEBREWS. 

9 : J 9 148 

1 PETER. 

1:7 66 

2 PETER. 

3 : 10-12 136 

3 : 13 136 

1 JOHN. 

2:3 174 

4 : l6 J 74 

4 : 20, 21 172 



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